


Wander Silent

by Maizzy



Series: Wander Silent [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Arlathan, Character Study, Comedy, Elven Glory, Explicit Language, F/F, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, I live for sexual tension, Multi, POV Alternating, Slow Burn, SolAss, The M rating happened, The Masked Empire, Trespasser DLC, Trespasser Spoilers, Unreliable Narrator, omg
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-03-10 07:46:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 38
Words: 115,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3282509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maizzy/pseuds/Maizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She tensed, heart hammering as the stone dug into her back and Solas’s necklace dug into her front.</p><p>“You think it is that easy? To start a revolution and walk away, trusting that things will work out?” </p><p>Eres’ stomach turned over. “What I think,” she hissed back, chin held high, “Is that a revolution needs to start somewhere. It’s the responsibility of the people that believe in the cause to keep it going, and there is not an elf anywhere in Thedas that does not believe in this cause. All except you, apparently.”</p><p>--<br/>CONTAINS TRESPASSER SPOILERS<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dark Corners

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is how I'm dealing with all of the theories bouncing around in my head about Solas and Arlathan, and, obviously, my terrible, terrible angst over Solas x Lavellan. Canon, but with ~embellishments~. "Expanded canon" is probably the best way to put it. If you like flashbacks, Elvhen demi-gods plotting things, badass lady elves, Kirkwall and more (SAVE THE DALISH 2K15!), this is the fic for you.
> 
> I will literally love you forever if you comment anywhere along the way in here!

“You stayed behind… You could have… I will not allow the events at Haven to happen again. You have my word.”

Solas shifted closer to the stone ledge separating the upper courtyard from the lower, listening. The conversation happening below had taken a turn towards a direction he had not the taste for - too unpalatably sweet from the commander, with a sprinkling of irritating uncertainty left on the tip of his tongue from the Inquisitor's long pause. Even as he knew he had no business hovering over the place where the Commander and the Inquisitor spoke, continuing his perusal of the grounds was an impossibility until she replied, which, in and of itself, was frustrating. This should be none of his concern.

Solas and the Inquisitor had spoken often over the previous weeks as they traveled towards Skyhold. The destruction of Haven had shaken her, more so even than she already had been at the idea of being a living Chantry saint. The stares and whispers of the human faithful had fallen on her like physical blows after the battle; they stared at her, eyes shining with reverence and few words other than whispers of “Herald” or lines of the chant of light. Eres would suck in a slow breath each time, hissing out the air between her teeth before grabbing the first possible opportunity to escape the worshippers.  He understood how that sort of isolation felt. He even understood how necessary it was to keep up this “chosen one” line for the politics of their situation, but holes were starting to show in her calm facade and it worried him. 

She may have been Dalish, but she was not the irritable myth-monger he had fully expected her to be. It had been a pleasant, albeit disconcerting, surprise. The conversation in the snowy night after escaping Haven had acted as a cocoon around their mild friendship; a bubble of something sad and ancient that encased them together and threw up a small barrier of separateness from the Andrastians that pressed in on all sides. He had seen her eyes that night, reflecting the veilfire, shine with something other than the wavering blue flames. She had covered it, sliding a mask of polite interest over those heavy, dark feelings, but he had seen it. And it mattered.

That was when he knew that she could potentially be a problem for him. He had admired her on the most basic of animal levels when they had first met, true, had even been pleased by her drive to fight for the freedom of the repressed mages of Thedas, but up until that moment alone together in the snow he had not truly thought of her as anything other than a means to an end. She had been a mild interest, insignificant really, past the piece of fade embedded in her hand. Now, however, he was intrigued. It was a problem, and a problem that was coming more and more into the light as he felt the stirrings of something hot and slippery flop feebly around in his stomach as he watched the Inquisitor standing below with the human commander.

“Thanks, Cullen.”

Concise. Heartfelt, but not leaning towards the heat that the Commander had been radiating. Solas should not care. All sense and logic dictated that he should have been at best, apathetic to her casual reply; at worst, disappointed, yet a low rumble of satisfaction was spreading through him.

The conversation below drifted apart and she wandered away, leaving the Commander to his never-ending scouts and reports. Solas traipsed down the steps and caught up to the newly-minted Inquisitor as she bent to examine some of the wares at the merchant stalls that had sprung up seemingly overnight. He granted himself a moment of weakness, tracing his eyes over her as she ran her fingers along a bow that would’ve bankrupted the Inquisition on the spot.

“Looking for a new knife?”

“Sadly, I seem to have lost my best one on the trek from Haven, but it can wait.” 

She straightened and turned, giving him a small smile that ratcheted up his heart pace a few notches.

“Are you exploring Skyhold?” She asked. “I feel like there’s no end to it.”

“Yes, it is quite an extensive fortress. Though I have been here before, my focus was on the stories playing themselves out rather than on the actual layout of the place.” He took a sweeping look around the high stone walls and continued without much thought, “If you’d care to join me, I’d welcome the company. Perhaps we could find some places as yet untouched by the Inquisitions’ rebuilders.”

As soon as the words had left his mouth, Solas knew he had stepped into forbidden territory. There was danger in being alone with her. Alone in, perhaps, a small room where she would accidentally brush against him as she went past to examine something. A room where he might lose his head and catch her arm as she did the accidental brushing, press her up against the wall and make her forget the Commander’s dreadful mumbles about protection. Make her forget the Commander in entirety and think of nothing but him, as he raked his hands over her body and crushed her to him. He wanted to make her gasp his name; whimper small nothings as he trailed kisses down the length of her collarbone.   
  
But he could not.

The Inquisitor was looking up at him with a raised brow. “Alright… I think I’d like that. Where to first?” 

He needed to let this go. He needed to not seek time alone with her. He needed to keep his focus. He needed… to reply. She was gazing up at him with confusion once again at his long pause.

Solas tried to quirk a smile back at her and said, “I’ll leave that up to you, Lethallan, as it is your castle and I wouldn’t dare presume to order the Inquisitor around her own keep.”

She snorted at that. 

“I’m starting to get used to you calling me ’ _Lethallan_ ’, but you really can just call me Eres.” She added in an undertone, “Gods know there are few enough people here that will do more than mumble ‘Herald’ at me anyway.”

He inclined his head and replied, “’ _Ma nuvenin_ , Eres.”

A pink tinge came to her cheeks as her name rolled off his tongue and he couldn’t stand to see it. He took off, tearing his eyes away from her and heading for the stairs tucked in the back of the grounds. He couldn’t hear her footsteps following, but then, he rarely could. He did, however, feel her eyes on him and the thrum of the magic, his magic, from the mark on her hand as she kept pace. He pushed open the door and stepped into a large room, empty, aside from two paintings covering the walls on either end and several stone columns lining the interior. Dust swirled and settled as she closed the door with a soft thud, leaving them alone and distinctly separate from the rest of the inhabitants of Skyhold.

This had been a very, very large error in judgement on his part.

Eres blew out a long breath, but said nothing, instead heading towards one of the doors at random in the deserted hall. Inside was an old library, clearly the haunt of a mage long dead, filled to the brim with dusty, cobweb-covered tomes. The air inside sat stagnant and still. She walked slowly through the room, running her fingers over generations of arcane knowledge and came to a stop at the desk in the center, turning to face him and crossing her arms.

Immediately he was on edge.

“I need to know more about Corypheus,” she said, eyes boring into his. A small frown creased her forehead.

This was far from what he had expected. Solas suddenly had the distinct impression that she had been waiting to corner him alone for some time to demand more answers than he was willing to give. Hastily, he tried to construct an innocuous response, distracted by how she seemed to sense he had not given her all that he knew when the topic had first come up on the way to Skyhold. He had been so careful in his lies; only weaving stories where omitting parts of the truth were not enough to hold his tales together. Perhaps she was suspicious of his claims of learning his varied knowledge from the Fade? She was no mage, and had no way of checking to see if all he said was even possible. He had thought that to be a blessing when they had first met… but that was before he had begun to understand how damnably perceptive she could be.

He widened his eyes to feign innocence, and hers narrowed accordingly.

“We spoke of this on our travels to Skyhold. What more can I tell you? Cassandra and Varric seem more familiar with our adversary.”

Even as he spoke the words, he saw that they fell flat of the intended effect of getting her away from the topic. Inquisitor, indeed. 

She cocked a hip, unimpressed.

“You’re a mage, you studied the breach, and you seem to have some idea how a bastard like this might think,” she said, waving a hand.

He could not restrain the smile that spread over his face at those words. If only she knew. Clearly, some of the things he let fly off his tongue without consultation from his brain were catching up to him. His pulse still did a few interesting things every time he thought back to his declaration of her gracefulness back in Haven, and the surprised hum she had responded with before running away. Feeling properly abashed about small instances like that was becoming harder and harder the long he spent spent in her company.

He drew closer to her in the cramped library, and her demeanor turned wary. 

Interesting. 

She took a minuscule step back and bumped her thighs up against the desk, sending up a stir of dust. He stopped his approach and tried to look politely bewildered, though he could feel himself being relatively unsuccessful at tamping down the smirk on his face, which probably lessened the effect.

“I’m flattered,” he replied, with what he thought to be a decent amount of bafflement in his inflection. “I claim no secret wisdom, but I will guess as best I can.”

She relaxed her shoulders a bit and dropped her hands to the table, half-sitting on it, but her eyes lost none of their intensity.  Solas stilled. It would not do to shift under her scrutiny.

“So this orb… you said it is Elvhen?”

“Yes, as I said, that must be the means by which he created the Breach. I suspect the blast that destroyed the conclave was more accident than anything… What I cannot understand is how he managed to survive such an explosion.” Which was, actually, true. It was an important question for which he had no answer.

She continued to watch him, frowning, a silent request for him to continue.

Solas looked away and stared at the large book behind her, finding it hard to speak of his stupidity and continue to meet her gaze.

“I never would have believed a Tevinter mage could unlock such a powerful relic.” He should never have given that blight-infested monster the orb. Had he known that the creature would have been able to survive the blast from unlocking it, Solas would never have followed that plan, despite his desperation. He continued in a more subdued tone, “It clearly enhances his abilities, giving him access to power he should never have known.”

She leaned up and moved closer to him, clasping her hands behind her back. “What do you think he’s going to do next?” She asked. The worry and exhaustion came off of her in palpable waves. She had the look of someone that desperately needed comforting, but had no where to gain it. 

He could do it. It would be wrong on every level, but he could stand in the place a friend should occupy and offer her kind words and kinder contact. Solas resisted the impulse, and clasped his hands behind his back too. It was an impossibility. That much was abundantly clear from all that he had not said during this uncomfortable conversation. Getting too attached to anything in this strange future would not make his duty any easier. She wasn’t real. This world was never supposed to have happened. He must not lose sight of all that was lost.

He sighed and said quietly, “You spoiled his glorious victory at Haven. It would be worse to acknowledge you had done so. He must continue on his course or show weakness. He will return to his plans to throw Orlais into chaos, and then conquer it for Tevinter.”

“You’re sure?”

He quirked an eyebrow and looked down at her dangerously close, upturned face.

“As certain as is possible, assuming I can plausibly predict a man who seeks to rise to godhood.”

“And can you?”

She was joking with him. How strange. That was rather new. 

“The key is understanding this: No real god need prove himself. Anyone who tries is mad or lying. His deception will undo him, as it has done countless fools before.”

She smirked at him, and took another step closer, tilting her head up to keep his gaze. There were scant inches between them, and he could feel the heat radiating from her body in the chill of the forgotten library. It would be so easy to lay a hand on her waist and draw her across the last few gaps of space between them. He was frozen, unable to want to move. Paralyzed between his base desires and the wrongness.

“I’d like to know more about you, Solas,” she said suddenly, and her eyes drifted over his lips.

_No._

Logic and reality came crashing down on him in an unpleasant icy wave.

He took a quick step back, and said with forced geniality, “You continue to surprise me.” 

Her face reddened and she drew back as well.

_No no._

“Let us talk… preferably somewhere more interesting than this.” With a flick of his hand she dropped into a deep sleep. Her limp body crumpled down, but he caught her before she fell to the floor.

The sheer stupidity of this move hit him the moment her weight landed in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'ma nuvenin = as you wish  
> lethallan = Casual reference used for someone with whom one is familiar. Lethallin is used for males, while lethallan is used for females, but this is not always the case. Akin to "cousin" or "clansman" since "lin" is the word for blood.
> 
> I've always thought this chunk of dialogue was interesting because Solas is BLATANTLY failing at lying to the Inquisitor. Seriously, go back and play this little section (only pops up the first time you ask about Corypheus after getting to skyhold). He might as well be wearing a giant, flashing neon sign that says "LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE".


	2. Outmaneuvering

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t intend to do the whole story in double perspective chapters like this, but I couldn’t resist for this one. I thought it’d be interesting to show how similarly Eres and Solas thought, and just how much they were still misreading each other. After all, they don’t know each other exceptionally well yet, and so it’s sort of a game of hit-and-miss for two people that think they both know everything.
> 
> So yeah, as a heads up, I will be writing both perspectives, but it won’t often be straight up time-overlapping again. Probably never again, actually.

“You stayed behind… you could have… I will not allow the events at Haven to happen again. You have my word.”

Eres shifted, foot to foot.

A little alarm bell had gone off the moment he had opened his mouth after she had tried to say she was glad he hadn't, you know, died. His words now were filled to the brim with honesty and more than a commander’s desire for the continued safety of his leader and it made her a bit squeamish. Despite the blatant innuendos she lobbed at Cullen on a regular basis (in the hopes of setting off one of his amusing stammering and blushing fits, of course), she didn’t have any plans for the fiercely red man standing in front of her. He was _supposed_ to have known that, but apparently not. 

Even as she knew she had no business doing it, most of her time - well, time not spent trying to hold together a world hell-bent on falling apart - was spent thinking about another man in the Inquisition. One that could send her into blushing and stammering fits of her own. The knowing, satisfied smirk he got each time she dissolved under the blatant charm he occasionally let slip gave her heart palpitations for hours afterwards. Talking to him felt like touching pleasant lightning; every nerve ending doing a backflip as she processed his occasionally suggestive and always clever words.

She was not quite sure when her feelings for him had flipped from wary to fascinated, but they had. There was a slow build involved somewhere, but lately she had been feeling like it was something of an inevitability - of course she was smitten with the strange, quiet apostate. That was just how her luck seemed to be going these days. 

If she had to point a finger and say “then”, it had probably all crashed together after her escape from Haven. She had woken up in the frigid air, every inch of her body aching with some new and interesting pain. She had lain still, feigning sleep, to take a moment to really appreciate just how badly she hurt. Her muscles screamed and her fingers and toes burned with a strange scratchy sort of fire. She had thought she had broken a rib from her tumble to the hidden tunnel in Haven, but someone must have fixed it while she was unconscious. 

Eres’ mental inventory had been interrupted by the sounds of an argument cutting through the cold, wintery air. She had sat up to go and diffuse the situation, only to find Mother Giselle strong arming her into staying on the makeshift cot. For which, a moment later, Eres had been grateful for as her brain caught up to her skull and mentally clanged around like a gong. If she had tried to stand, she was sure she would have collapsed flat out.

Giselle had looked at Eres with a mixture of worry and what could only be described as reverence, which had make her break out in a cold sweat at the time. It was a look she had recognized from when she had first stepped out into Haven after attempting and failing to seal the Breach, only to a more alarming extent. Now they looked at her like she was not only a “chosen one”, but a minor deity unto herself. Like she would somehow know exactly what to do and that no harm could befall them if she stood as their protector. 

Eres’ eye still twitched every time she thought of it. 

She had gotten up to lean on the post of the tent, trying to avoid Mother Giselle's eyes. Behind her, the woman had burst out into a hymn - an actual, honest to the gods, chantry hymn and Eres had nearly fallen over in surprise. The whole of the camp had taken it up. The humans raised their voices to a god that Eres did not believe in, and she had experienced the sensation of sinking into a black pit, the pinprick of night sky at the top getting farther and farther from her reach. She had been suffocating and no one had even noticed, though they had all looked at her as they sang. They had started to kneel before her, clasping their hands in prayer and she had wanted to slap them. She was not the divine entity they wanted her to be, and their crazy belief was a cage without a key. Then she had caught sight of Solas, looking at her as well, but not like the rest. He had not been singing, but frowning, and he had stared directly into her eyes. It had steadied her. Let her breathe once again, as the humans finished their song. He had asked for a word with her after that, and Eres had practically dived after him. 

That was probably when she knew Solas could be a problem, looking back. If she was to make it through all of the political ramifications of being an Elf in a tenuous position of power, and, more importantly, the towering task of taking down a monster that wanted to be a god, she could not afford to let her guard down until the job was done. Still, the feeling of having someone that could understand what she was going through with the Inquisition as an non-believer was invaluable to her. Especially as he had informed her that perhaps Andraste was not the religious icon the Inquisition should be the most concerned with... Not that she had let any of the other leaders know about the Elvhen origin of the orb. Not yet, anyway.

Cullen cleared his throat.  “Um, Inquisitor.” 

Eres jumped.

Whoops. 

She mustered up her best warm, but distinctly neutral tone - no sense in leading him on - and replied with a plain, “Thanks, Cullen.”

They exchanged a few other words, but the conversation withered and Eres decided to go scope out the dagger situation at the new shop stalls in the courtyard. 

She felt Solas' approach before he had gotten within fifteen feet of her. She had worked on this particular skill - her expanded personal space, as she chose to think of it - since she was a kid. Most of the time using it to stay one step ahead of their clan’s huntsmaster as he attempted to track her down through the forests to make sure she wasn’t somehow cheating at using a bow. Which, of course, she had been.

She inwardly snorted at that, as she dragged her fingers over a deadly looking bow at the Orlesian woman’s stall. It had been a scandal back then. Her clan may have been less traditional than most Dalish, but that had never seemed to stop Master Ando from haranguing her about her archery. He had put a bow in her hands as soon as she was old enough to walk, but her skills had never really developed past those first fumbling, toddler attempts to imitate the adult hunters. Ando, crotchety bastard that he was, had maintained that if Andruil favored a bow, _all_  Dalish should be skilled at archery as well - Eres "must not have been praying hard enough". 

Ando had bellowed at her for a few years and then frowned at her quietly for a few more. Every time she missed her target at practice he winced and grumbled words under his breath. Eres had learned her first particularly vivid curse words that way.  If she wasn’t able to hunt, the rest of the clan didn’t know what to do with her either. She was an impressively dreadful cook; far, far too impatient for craftwork and had a bad habit of disappearing entirely whenever they tried to make her tend to the Halla. Luckily, she had discovered dancing. 

Rarely did the clan have time for frivolous things like dancing, but there was one night that Keeper Verwyn had gathered everyone around the largest fire and taught one of the traditional dances that had carried down through history. It was one of the only remaining concrete memories of Halamshiral, possibly even Arlathan, the old keeper had said.

She had watched the adults that night, as they swung their limbs around, trying to puzzle out the steps. Suddenly, she had understood not only how the dance should look, but how it could look, if the keeper didn’t smack her upside the head for embellishing a piece of history. Eres had always held a strong no risk - no reward policy, and her childhood self had stood up, dusted off her leather leggings and proceeded to show her clan how it was done. Eres had, for the first time, found something she was meant to do.

Sadly, that night had ended and the next morning began with Master Ando greeting her with a new glint of resolve in his eyes and a reawakened fervor to get her to put an arrow somewhere close to a target. He had stayed sourly disappointed for a good fifteen years. Not that it mattered. Somewhere along the line she had realized that adding two bits of sharp metal to the dancing equation equalled a whole lot of deadly potential, and hadn't even bothered picking up a bow for more than show since then. 

“Looking for a new knife?”

Eres resisted the urge to jump as Solas surprised her out of her reminisces. 

“Sadly, I seem to have lost my best one on the trek from Haven, but it can wait.” She straightened and turned to him, heart rate skipping ahead at double time. This was unprecedented - he never sought her out on his own unless there was some sort of problem. Oh gods. That was it, wasn't it? That must be it. Shame, really. The idea that Solas had set out to find her for a chat had been an intriguing one.

“Are you exploring Skyhold?" Eres asked, watching his face for any hints of what trouble awaited her. "I feel like there's no end to it." She tried to smile at Solas, but it probably came across looking a bit grim. The muscles in her cheeks ached from disuse; there hadn’t really had much to smile about the past few weeks.

“Yes, it is quite an extensive fortress. Though I have been here before, my focus was on the stories playing themselves out in the Fade, rather than on the actual layout of the place. If you’d care to join me, I’d welcome the company. Perhaps we could find some places as yet untouched by the Inquisition’s rebuilders.” The way his eyes crinkled when he smiled in reply did less than nothing to settle her quickened heart rate. 

That... definitely didn't sound like a problem. 

Finding some dark corner of the unexplored castle with Solas?  A dark corner where she could perhaps accidentally on-purpose brush against him as she went past to examine something. A corner where he could perhaps catch her arm as she did the accidental brushing, and she could whirl to him, press herself up against him and feel the heat of his skin against her body. She could finally have the chance to run her fingers over his chest and catch his mouth with a kiss that would let him feel the fire she felt every time he caught her eye lately. Hear him whisper her name against her lips, and perhaps a few other places…

But she could not.

Too much was riding on her, and she could not afford to be side-tracked... right? She risked meeting his eyes, and to her consternation he had a faraway look himself. That was a surprise. An unpleasantly pleasant one. 

"Alright, I think I'd like that," she heard herself say. "Where to first?"

Shit. Those were not the words that were supposed to happen. Though, it was only polite, right? He was one of her inner circle. She should, of course, take the chance to get friendlier with all of them... Right? It was the sort of thing that a Responsible Inquisitor would do. Probably. 

Solas frowned at her and didn't reply. Not quite the response she had been expecting. After another moment, he quirked a somewhat strangled smile at her and said, "I'll leave that up you, _Lethallan_ , as it is your castle, and I wouldn't dare presume to order the Inquisitor around her own keep."

She sidetracked the conversation to give herself more time to think. "I'm starting to get used to you calling me ' _Lethallan_ ', but you really can just call me Eres. Gods know there are precious few people here that will do more than mumble 'Herald' at me anyway."

His indifferent face softened as he said, " _Ma Nuvenin_ , Eres."

The smooth Elvhen combined with her name rolling off of his tongue did things to Eres' current mental state that were distinctly unproductive. Damn. The blushing was starting. Always with the blushing.

Solas took off without another word, leaving Eres to collect herself a moment before falling in behind him. They reached the castle and she selected a room at random in the deserted wing, which turned out to be a small, dust-filled library. As Solas stepped into the dark, cramped space behind her, Eres' trepidation took a sharp upturn.  Funny, she had never really felt nervous just speaking to him before. But then, they'd never been properly alone before either. 

"I need to know more about Corypheus," she blurted out. Well, at least she had managed to say  _something_ that sounded vaguely Inquisitorial. That was leagues better than continuing to walk around the small library and pretending to care about the book titles buried under layers of grime. And, frankly, it was a valid question.  The night Solas had told her of the orb, she had gotten the distinct impression that he was holding out further information on her, and rarely was her gut instinct wrong.

Her intuition was immediately justified as she watched him raise a brow and say in a tone of utterly unbelievable incredulity, "We spoke of this on our travels to Skyhold. What more can I tell you? Cassandra and Varric seem to be more familiar with our adversary."

Curiousity: piqued.

Pulling information from him these past few months had, so far, been an exercise in futility. This time, though, he seemed unprepared for her. She came in from the side with a much broader verbal attack. "You're a mage. You studied the breach, and you seem to have some idea how a bastard like this might think."

Solas' eyes flashed, and for a moment she thought she had angered him, but then she heard him chuckle and a telltale smirk spread over his face. Not the response she was looking for there either. He took a few steps closer to her and she drew back, bumping into the desk behind her, becoming more and more aware of the ever-shrinking distance between them. He was smirking at her! This... this.. lying, frustratingly enigmatic man was actually smirking at her! First of all, rude. Second of... second of all, it was a rather nice smirk. She could stand to see it far more often and in much closer proximity. 

It was probably for the best that he stopped his approach. It gave her a moment to remember how to breathe again.

He used more of his faux-innocent voice to say, "I'm flattered. I claim no secret wisdom, but I will guess as best I can."

She tried to relax and fired a few more questions about the orb at him while she collected her thoughts. As Solas spoke about their enemy and the tremendous amount of power he had at his disposal Eres experienced the same sinking sensation she had felt on that cold mountainside surrounded by singing shemlens. Solas might be withholding something, but he clearly intended her no harm. As she contemplated the sheer scope of what lay before her, whatever he was hiding felt less and less important. 

It was too much. Everything was too much. She was good, probably even great at what she did, but what she did was kill things; not lead people. Leading people had never once entered her mind as a possibility until Cassandra had duped her into walking up those stone steps and Leliana had handed her a sword as big as her entire body. They were mad to think she was the right person for the job. She was going to fuck it up, and when she did the world would end. How was one person supposed to handle something like that? 

"What do you think he’s going to do next?” She whispered.

Solas looked at her with concern and something that very nearly smacked of sadness. He said what she thought to be true as well - that Corypheus would continue on with his plan to make that terrible future she had seen at Redcliffe come to pass. 

"You're sure?"

She already knew he was, but desperately wanted a different answer.

"As certain as is possible, assuming I can plausibly predict a man who seeks to rise to godhood, " Solas said, deadpan.

Eres blinked. Was he joking with her? The anxiety gripping her lessened.  If he was going to deadpan jokes at her, she could do it right back.  "And can you?" She asked, teasing, drawing closer to where he stood.

If she was expected to save the gods damned world, maybe she deserved more than setting aside every one of her own needs for the cause. Maybe she could have this one thing for herself, if Solas was willing, and maybe it wouldn't automatically condemn her to failure. Maybe.

He answered her, but now that she had resolved what she was going to do, her focus shifted almost entirely to his lips as he finished speaking. She took another step and there were scant inches left in between them. An almost tangible electric current filled the air in those few inches. 

Eres' excitement and anxiety peaked as she said, "I'd like to know more about you, Solas." 

She could see that he too felt the charge running rampant around the room. His eyes flicked to her lips as she spoke the words. 

Which made his forced-friendly reply of "You continue to surprise me" and his hasty steps back from her worse than they could have been.

Disappointment washed over her. She felt like an idiot. Clearly she was misreading him left and right today, and had succeeded only in making them both uncomfortable. Great. Day two of being the Inquisitor and she was already making unwelcome sexual advances on one of her inner circle. Really solid work.

A look of panic flew over Solas’ face. Before she could even begin to interpret what it could mean, he said, "Let us talk... preferably somewhere more interesting than this."

Then the world went black.


	3. Wildfire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been thinking about how the fade kiss even came into being. Like, Lavellan is just standing there talking to Solas in the rotunda, and then she's in the fade and wakes up in her room. He HAD to have knocked her out and taken her up to her room. HAD to. Which is great.

His idiocy was staggering as of late. Mistake after mistake. 

If they had been in the times before he slept through the world changing, things might have been different. For one, perhaps he would not have lost his mind so thoroughly as to enchant the inquisitor asleep mid-conversation. Surely at some point in his many years he would've handled that situation with some measure of sense.

Solas looked down at her there in his arms, cheek tucked up against his chest, breathing serene. He could not stop his gaze from lingering on the vallaslin marring her face. It was Sylaise’s symbol carved around her eye; blue instead of the red that the goddess had traditionally demanded of her followers. Clearly the Dalish had no idea how much it would have infuriated Sylaise to see her marks painted in such a way.

_His eyes itched. They always itched when he went to see Sylaise. A steady haze of perfumed smoke filled her gilded halls, making his head pound the further he got from the door. Solas’ staff echoed through the temple as it hit the ground on each alternate step in his stride, and he could hear the clusters of worshippers adjust their looping, lilting songs to follow the cadence of his walk. They kept their eyes averted from him, for the most part, staring into the flames lining the walls as they sang their beautiful songs. The songs were always beautiful in Sylaise’s temples; she would tolerate nothing less._

_Solas had witnessed her on one bad day threaten to immolate one of her priests for daring to sing in her presence while he'd had a head cold. Andruil had been there as well - likely Sylaise’s temper would not have flared quite so violently had she not been listening to her sister’s tales of her follower’s subservience through the fear she teased out of them with threats of her next hunt. Which was why he was taking this moment now, when he knew Andruil to be far, far from Arlathan to speak to Sylaise alone._

_Two slaves bearing swirling red vallaslin pushed open the doors to the throne room, and Solas smiled at them in thanks as he strode past._

_“Did you see that? He looked at me!” the girl on the left whispered urgently to her companion, who shushed her._

_He continued up to where Sylaise was lounging and inclined his head to her. She was a gorgeous woman - all flowing red hair and silk, dark skin slipping through the drapes of her gown. Solas had once desired her, back before war had rolled across the lands and his friends had begun the long descent to claiming control of Elvhenan. They had wanted him to follow suit. To his shame, the idea had not repulsed him as much as it should’ve. Solas firmly shoved the guilt to the back of his mind. What truly mattered was that it repulsed him now, and that he was taking steps to solve it._

_“Solas,” she greeted, without rising. A lazy smile spreading over her face. “Or should I be calling you Fen’Harel these days? To what do I owe this pleasure?”_

_“You’re looking radiant as always, Sylaise,” he said, bowing low and looking up at her with his best wicked grin, though the effort left his cheeks aching. “Do I need a reason to visit?”_

_She smiled back at him, weighing her response before replying, “No, I suppose not. You have not been in Arlathan for some time now, no? Traveling far and wide, from all that I’ve managed to hear.”_

_He straightened out of the bow, but kept his smile in place.  “I have indeed been traveling, but the strain of being away from your beauty for so long wore on me,” he said, affecting a wearied expression. He couldn’t afford to overdue anything, but Sylaise had always been vain. This was not over done by her standards, rather, it was the bare minimum to spur her into talking._

_“Charmer,” she tittered and rose from her seat, her gown slinking off of one shoulder as she glided over to where he stood._

_She clicked her fingers once at the slaves still standing in wait by the door, not taking her eyes off of him. “Len’alas, shem! Wine and cushions!”_

_Solas didn’t bother to keep his face passive at her derogatory words, and her eyebrows raised in amusement. The two servants rushed back into the room, one bearing a pitcher and glasses, the other two gold-woven cushions, each larger than her entire body. Sylaise flicked a hand at them in dismissal when they had arranged the makeshift lounge. Once they had retreated, she ran a hand down Solas’ arm, twining her fingers in his as she reached his hand, and drew him down onto the pillows, settling herself flush against him. He hadn’t planned on moving past gratuitous flattery and clever words, but if she wanted to forge ahead with the old friend-seduction gambit, he would stay game until he got what he needed from her._

_“Ah,” she said, leaning into him, and letting the other sleeve of her dress fall off her shoulder as well, “Much more comfortable. Pour me a glass of wine?”_

_“Ma Nuvenin,” he replied, deftly wrapping the arm bearing her cup around her waist, drawing her closer as he handed her the wine._

_She plucked it out of his hand with a sultry laugh.  “Come now, there is no need to be so reticent with me. Tell me of your journeys. Tell me absolutely everything. I have missed your presence at court.” Sylaise ran fingernails lightly over the knuckles of the hand he had on her waist as she spoke. “Things are never quite as… explosive without you there.”_

_He forced a chuckle at that. “Indeed. I find that to be entirely unsurprising.”_

_“It could be different, though,” Sylaise murmured, snuggling closer to him._

_“I have not returned to Arlathan to resume that old argument.”_

_Her fingers stopped tracing his and she perked up. “Oh?”_

_“But it is not forgotten. Nor has my opinion changed.”_

_“Oh.” She resumed her tracing._

_They sat in silence, sipping the excellent wine, listening to the soft reverberations of the worshippers singing outside in the temple._

_Sylaise, seeming to grow impatient, shifted and pushed herself up into his lap, languidly wrapped her arms his neck. “Why? Why will you not join us? Look at all of this. You could be an actual part of it. We are helping these people - guiding them. It is our responsibility to maintain control.”_

_“I have told you my thoughts on this before. Many times, if memory serves. Godhood? How can you even claim such a thing?” Disgust bled into every word he spoke._

_Sylaise glared. “And how do you know that I am not?”_

_“How do I know that you are not a goddess?” He echoed, incredulous._

_“Yes, Sol. How do you know? We have these powers. The people obey us. It’s not a mistake that we’ve risen - it was destiny. ”_

_Solas nearly shoved her off of him. He sealed his lips together while his rage simmered down to a level he could hide. If he was to play this game - to get all he needed from being in the presence of the evanuris, mastering his temper was paramount to his success.  He had know it would be like this with Sylaise, but he was not quite prepared to hear her full and unabashed belief in it all. Dangerous was the lie that liars believed themselves._

_It was time to move the process along._

_“Sylaise, I came to ask a favor.”_

_She frowned at his sudden change of topic, but eventually seemed to realize that she would not get any further discussion from him. “Ask away, dear friend.”_

_“I need fire.”_

_She stared, clearly caught off guard.  “Shall I… light you a match?” She asked, straight-faced._

_He chuckled, and linked his hands behind her back. That was the Sylaise he used to know. The Sylaise he missed. Perhaps she was not entirely lost, after all. Perhaps this plan would work without having to destablize all they had built over the centuries. “You know that’s not what I mean. I need true flame. First flame. I know you have it here.”_

_Her eyebrows raised once again. “And what, pray tell, do you intend to do with it?”_

_“Does it much matter to you? It is for an experiment,” he said, carefully sidestepping her question._

_She made a show of considering the his request, and finally said, “What will you give me in return?”_

_“Make any reasonable request of me, lethallan, and I will tell you if it is a fair trade."_

_She raised a hand to his face and delicately stroked his jaw, not answering for a time.  “A kiss.”_

_“What?” He asked, perplexed._

_“That is my price.”_

_He had been expecting to trade knowledge, but a kiss? That was potentially far more dangerous._

_She was watching him, eyes unreadable._

_He shook his head once, and slowly brought one of his hands up to the back of her head trailing his fingers over her silken hair. His mind made up, he swiftly leaned forwards, closing the space between them and drawing her into a fierce kiss. She melted under his touch and mouths still caught together, leaned back, falling onto the spare cushion, dragging him on top of her. He gave into it, losing himself in the moment despite the strangeness of it. She brought a leg up and rubbed her foot along his thigh as her hands snaked under his vest and shirt. Her gown was hiked up past her hip and she brought a hand out from under his shirt just long enough to grab the hand he was using to hold himself up. She placed it on her bare thigh, holding it there for a moment before running her fingers over his back and down to the muscles of his backside, massaging him in a way that made him practically rip her dress off right then and there._

_They broke apart for breath and she whispered “I want you.” Damned if he didn’t want her too, but he remained pulled away as she tried to wrangle him back to her. It could not happen. Not when the reality of their situation was like a pile of dry sticks, sparks flying all around._

_“The fire, Sylaise,” he murmured against her lips, before giving her a playful peck and straightening up._

_She propped herself up on her elbows and visibly pouted.  “Oh very well,” she huffed, taking his outstretched hand and letting herself be pulled to her feet._

_She readjusted her gown, and beckoned him over to a door leading off from the throne room. They walked in silence through twisting halls and finally stepped into a room, empty, aside from a fire pit in the middle filled with blue flame. Sylaise waved her hand and what looked like shimmering bubble encased a portion of the flame. It lifted up and away from the fire pit and drifted over to where Solas’ outstretched palm was waiting._

_“Pleasure doing business with you."_

_She rolled her eyes, and they walked arm in arm all the way out to the streets of Arlathan._

Eres stirred against his chest and let out a soft huff of breath. He tore his eyes away from the vicious tattoo on her face and tried to think what to do next. He was unsure. He supposed he could go and meet her in the fade there in the dust-encrusted library, but if someone were to come across them sleeping together on the filthy floor… well, he had wounded her pride already, he would not harm her honor as well. He could wake her up, but that would place them back where they had started, only she would be demanding to know why he had knocked her out in the first place. Plus, he suspected she could use the sleep. Dark rings had been steadily growing around her eyes with each passing day. There was nothing for it. Solas was going to have to try to carry her up to her chambers. 

He readjusted his hold on her and exited the small library, thinking of the best way to get through the castle while avoiding everyone he possibly could. A daunting task. It was either out through the grounds or up through the main hall. Since the outdoor route would exponentially increase the chances of bumping into the Commander and spurring him into some misguided tirade about propriety - possibly even culminating in him attempting to take over the task of carrying Eres up to her room, Solas opted out of that particular direction and headed for the indoors route. 

As he climbed the stairs, he heard the door above open and someone step into the enclosed stairwell. He froze, hoping it was just Lady Montilyet passing through to her office, rather than another denizen looking for new places to explore. After a moment, the other door slammed close and he released the breath he had been holding. Cautiously, he crept forward and cracked the door open to the main hall, peeking out. It was mercifully empty, aside from a handful of builders conversing at the far end of the hall. He could slip past their notice easily enough. He quickly hip-checked the door fully open and took off with fast, quiet steps towards the door to the Inquisitor’s tower, staying close to the wall.

“Apostate!” A sharp voice lashed out at him from the door across from where he had just exited.

_Harpy_ , he thought.

“First Enchanter,” he said. 

The builders had halted their conversation and were peering down the hall at him and the first enchanter. She strode over, head held high, eyes slitted. 

“What, pray tell, are you doing?” She asked, running her gaze over Eres’ sleeping form.

“Why, I’ve clearly clubbed the Inquisitor over the head, and intend to murder her before slipping away into the night."

Her eyes narrowed further as she looked down her nose at him. “I care not for your dreadful attempts at wit, Elf,” she said. “How did she come to be in this - this state.” 

Solas sighed, and let the lie roll off his tongue. “I happened upon her like this. She was passed out in the old library. Perhaps the weariness of the journey has not yet left her.”

Vivienne glared at him, blatantly disbelieving. “Well then, Darling, since you deemed it wise to ignore all propriety, you must forgive me if I try to restore some. I shall escort you up to her room.”

She turned on her heel without giving him time to reply and threw open the door to the Inquisitor’s tower. He followed without argument - it would be pointless, and frankly, it was perhaps for the best that she did accompany him, lest unhelpful rumors start to spread about his behavior. 

They ascended the stairs in hostile silence, Eres breathing serenely, completely unaware of the tense atmosphere surrounding her. He had cast the sleep spell well.

They drew up onto the top floor, an extravagantly large stone room with windows lining all of the walls and a large feather bed set in the middle. He gently laid Eres down on the bed, and she shivered as she was moved away from his body heat. Frowning disapprovingly around the room at the lack of a crackling fire for heat, he carefully pulled back the layers of blankets underneath her sleeping form and drew them over her - the first enchanter sourly watching his hands the entire time, as though she expected him to try something untoward if she looked away for even a second. He could not believe that this human could think so little of him. Though, he supposed, he thought quite as little of her and her vicious outlook on her fellow mages. Still, he could not help but grudgingly appreciate her watching over the Inquisitor, as she slept helpless in the arms of a man that she was not known to be involved with. He respected that the first enchanter drew the line somewhere in terms of coldly ignoring people in need. 

He turned from Eres and noted a large, ugly tapestry hanging on the wall above the storage balcony. It depicted a scene from the Exalted Marches on the Dales. He was surprised that Eres had not yet clambered up there and yanked it down herself. Perhaps he could do something to help with that. Her room should be her own, not a constant reminder of injustices inflicted upon her people.

The first enchanter waited for him to leave the room first, and closed the door behind her with a click. They did not speak to each other further, and he was left to wander back to the space he had claimed for himself in the rotunda. Solas sank onto the couch, rubbing his palms into his eyes, as he tried to figure out how best to approach Eres in her dreams. He did not want to intrude long on whatever she was dreaming about at the moment, so he would have to bring her somewhere else where it would not seem out of place that he was present. 

It was sad that so many of the people of this time could not walk the fade and know it for what it was. He sighed and swung his legs up on to the couch and flicked up a shield shaped like a disk over himself to block any bird droppings from assaulting him as he slept. 

He still had no idea what he was going to say to her when he found her, but he would at least be on his home territory. Perhaps that would help. 

Solas closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Len'alas" = dirt child, which I'm using as a derogatory term for "slave", since we don't know the actual elven word for slave  
> "Shem" = fast, quickly
> 
> Post Trespasser note: I've been thinking A LOT about how exactly Solas could come to be this person in history that had shrines and stuff built for him, enough resources to start an entire, huge revolution AND enough clout to rub shoulders with Mythal. I've decided that he was one of those generals that became honored elders, etc, etc. I think he hopped off the train when things started to get out of hand to try and figure out a way to take down the others, whereas Mythal stayed on to try to temper them. 
> 
> So that's where I'm at, head canon-wise. Aggh. I love it. I love the story that Bioware's built SO. MUCH.


	4. Downpour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas finds Eres in the Fade, and plays voyeur for a bit in one of her memories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some mild violence in this chapter. Nothing worse than what happens in-game, though. 
> 
> also, HELLO Masked Empire spoilers.  
> 

Solas opened his eyes to familiar light filling his old bedchamber. He always began his dreams here if he slept without the grounding of specific intent. It was the only place he had ever truly felt at home, and each time he entered the Fade it was there before him: a fully-realized bittersweet memory, taunting him and haunting him. Occasionally he would allow himself to settle into the memory. To wander the halls brought to life once more through his influence over the Fade, but it served as a mild form of torture, forcing him to recognize that the shades of the people here were not real any longer, just as the people he spent his waking life with could not be real. A dagger of loneliness of twisted in his gut as a shade of his housekeeper swept into the room bearing food he could not eat and wished him a pleasant morning. 

He would fix it. He had to, but now was not the time. He had to collect his foci before he could do anything of use, and he would need to reclaim the use of the Eluvians, locked as they were from him. 

A stab of pain flashed through him as thoughts of the eluvian lead to memories of Felassan. They had met many times in this place; Solas drawing his friend here when Felassan slipped into dreams to bring him news through a more solid set of eyes than the skewed visions of dreamers. They had been together from the start of it. All of it. And then Felassan had done the one thing that made him a larger liability than he was asset - he had let the shades of the modern world become real to him. It was unforgivable. As were the actions Solas was then required to take next. 

The realization that the very transgression he had condemned his friend for was now one he was potentially in danger of falling into himself was... beyond comprehension. Only discernible as a raging ache that spiked through his chest if he allowed his thoughts to turn in that direction.

Tonight was not the night to linger over his past regrets, nor to dwell over his own failures, though.

He closed his eyes and spread out his will, searching for the beacon of power that originated in the Inquisitor’s hand. Finding her in the Fade would never be a problem for him, as long as the pulsing, vibrant tenor of his magic was imbedded in her hand. He found her almost at once.

Upon opening his eyes once again, he blinked in surprise as raindrops hit his face. He was standing out in what appeared to be the Storm Coast. He looked around for some sign of Eres or perhaps her clan, but saw nothing besides the rain-slicked stones and crashing waves. 

Distantly, he heard the voices of humans talking quietly in Tevene. Rounding a cliff face, he came upon group of Venatori chatting on the beach. He slipped up to where they were standing, trying to determine why Eres was dreaming of their foes in such a manner.

BOOM.

Solas nearly jolted awake as a blinding explosion went off at his feet and a roaring wall of sound drove up from the ground. A loud whoop of laughter followed in the rain-drenched air and he saw Eres saunter up to inspect the now Venatori-less crater he stood in.

He sighed. Of course she would be dreaming of explosions.

He was still invisible to her as she played out this memory, and as he looked around he realized it was one he shared with her as well. Moments later echoes of himself, Cassandra and Sera come skidding to a halt, all wearing identical looks of shock at the hole Eres was grinning at proudly. His own face melted into pained amusement, Sera’s split into a wide grin echoing Eres’ own and Cassandra rolled her eyes, letting out a disgusted groan from deep in her throat. 

He knew what came next, though he still could not imagine why Eres was dreaming of this situation. 

She tensed, changing her grip around the handles of her knives, wheeling to the side as an assassin revealed himself behind her, attempting to drive a dagger through her back. As she spun, she flung out an arm, slicing the assassin’s gut from left to right with a backhanded swing, right through his boiled leather armor. He crumpled to the ground as Cassandra called out “More incoming!” And Venatori spilled out of a crack in the cliffside. 

This was the day they were meant to audition Iron Bull’s band of mercenaries. Before going in to test out her new grenades, Eres had cracked a joke about not needing to watch someone else do their killing for them. It had been a mistake. A trap. Even as he watched the memory playing out, Solas found himself repeating the same error he had made that very day: he watched Eres - distracted by the ease with which she moved around the battlefield. It was like watching a selkie return to the water, all easy fluid grace and sheer confidence with every move she made. That early in the their travels he'd had a difficult time keeping his eyes off of her when she fought. 

Off in the distance, he could see Iron Bull and his chargers running to them, saw Cassandra tensing and then relaxing as Bull cleaved the Tevinter next to her instead of her. Solas watched more and more Tevinter reinforcements, flooding out as the chargers joined the fray. Saw himself, flinging around spell after spell; Sera taking down the Tevinter archers hovering around the edge of the fight and Eres flying around, a deadly whirl of glittering steel. 

A sense of dread settled in the pit of his stomach. He did not want to watch what came next. 

Bull spun, wiping out three would-be attackers, but missing an assassin behind him. Eres saw it happen and quickly scooped up a convenient bit of chain hanging off one of the beached boats and used it as a grappling hook to swing herself over to him, taking down the rogue before he could stab Bull in the kidney. Doing so had left her painfully visible, and a mage on the fringe of the fight had noticed. The mage slammed his staff onto the ground and one of the thunderheads in the sky sent a bolt of lightning shooting down at her. 

Even as Solas watched her crumple once again, the memory of his own uselessness set his teeth on edge. Clenching his fists, he walked through the memory, up to where she lay, twitching as her own rain-soaked skin sent small arcs of electricity skittering all over her body. 

She should not be dreaming of this. It was a wonder that she woke up rested at all, if this was the sort of thing that haunted her memories at night.

Blood mixed with water on the ground behind her head, and Solas’ chest clenched at the macabre sight. His anchor had nearly slipped through his fingers. So easily - without any fanfare at all. He had been careless.

A moment later, the echo of himself fade-stepped up next to where the real Solas stood and franticly thrust his hands out, attempting to push healing magic into the Inquisitor despite his severely depleted mana stores, completely disregarding everything else happening around him.

As an observer, this time he was not solely focussed on the Inquisitor and immediately saw the Tevinter warrior running up behind his shade. The warrior viciously smashed down on his shade’s head with the blunt end of his massive axe with a sharp jerk, and Solas watched himself fall under the blow.

Solas did not remember anything past that point until he had woken up in camp a couple hours later. He had not known, for instance, that Sera had saved his life with an impeccably timed arrow punching through the chain mail covering his would-be killer’s neck. He had not known that Cassandra had shield bashed the mage that had attacked Eres into the stone cliff, breaking his back. Most of all, he had not known that his desperate healing magic had saved Eres from from bleeding out on that cold stone beach. Had he not thrown away his better judgement the moment she had been hit, had he not been watching her so closely throughout the fight, he would never have made it to her in time.

As his shade hit the ground, Eres stirred. She sat up and looked around blearily before hastily quaffing a healing potion, out of what he assumed was reflex, and leapt to her feet. Her wide eyes took in the fight happening around her, and she froze when she saw his lifeless body on the ground next to where she stood. He watched as her face hardened, eyes going sharp. Respect for her swelled in chest at the sight, as had begun to happen more and more frequently the longer he spent in her company. She was unquestionably a capable woman. 

Eres fumbled in her belt and drew out a smoke grenade, smashing it at her feet. The fight was dying down, but was by no means over,. He scanned around as the smoke cleared, having lost track of her position. He spotted her, carrying his limp body slung over her small shoulders, and spared a moment to be stunned that she had managed to move him on her own. She brought his shade around the side of one of the over-turned boats, laying him down and quickly tilted his chin up. His chest did not rise with breath. She pinched his nose, took a deep breath and leaned down, covering his mouth with hers and breathing out. She repeated the action, but her eyebrows drew together in worry, and she quickly moved her shaking hands to his sternum, pressing down in a precise rhythm, letting his chest rise in between each compression. After a couple of seconds of this, his chest rose up in an actual breath, and Eres leaned back on her heels in relief. She watched him for a few moments, but stood quickly after she was sure he would keep breathing under his own power. She took off towards the fight without a backwards glance.

She used the chain she had left lying on the ground to whip herself around to the last few enemies, slicing their throats before they even had a chance to realize she was there. As soon as the last one dropped, she rushed back over to where he lay and checked his breathing once again.

“Is he alive?” Iron Bull asked, drawing up behind Eres. 

“Yes… Barely.” Her voice was tight, and she could not seem to move her eyes away from Solas’ unconscious face.

Bull looked uncomfortable. Unsurprising, if this was how his introduction to the Inquisition had happened.

“We have a healer who could - Hey! Stiches! Also Dalish could maybe - Dalish! come over here!” He shouted, waving a massive hand at two of the company walking amidst the fallen foes slitting throats. 

Eres only nodded. A trickle of blood was running down her face, and she wiped at it irritably. 

“That arsehole went tearing up to you straight through everyone! Friggin' well got himself - oh.” Sera trailed off as she got a good look at the echo of Solas laying on the ground. 

“Is he…?” Sera trailed off hesitantly, looking to the Inquisitor. 

Eres shook her head.

Dalish pushed up through the group and dropped to her knees, hands flaring blue as she passed them slowly over his head, while Stitches dug through a massive bag slung over his shoulders. 

No one said anything more as the two healers attempted to save his life. Eres stared at his face, eyes hard. She seemed to be trying to will him back on his feet.

He hadn’t meant to linger this long in one of her dreams, but there was a certain amount of dark fascination in seeing what had happened when he had been present, but unable to see for himself. 

“Inquisitor, can I talk to you for a minute?” Bull asked, looking sheepish at dragging her away from her vigil.

She tore her eyes away from the Solas on the ground and stood. They walked a distance along the shore, Eres stopping to absent-mindedly pluck a blood lotus out of the shallow water. 

“Listen, Inquisitor, I know we just met and everything, but uh, I just wanted to apologize.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said distractedly. 

Bull rubbed the back of his head and continued anyway. “I know you took that hit for me. That was my bad. And I know you care about that guy lying over there.” 

Eres blinked and looked up at him. "What?"

"Hey, whoa, my mistake. Maybe that hit I took on the head threw off my read."

"Yeah, maybe so," Eres mumbled, folding her arms over her chest and glancing back at where the shade of Solas was still being attended. 

The real Solas stared hard at her face, confused by the confusion he saw there. Was this perhaps a twist of the Fade, distorted by her current opinion of him? He knew what she had intended to do in that library. Their physical attraction was, at least, mutual. 

“Regardless, you should know that a day like this won't happen again. I look out for my own. You and yours could be counted among their number if you’d like.” He sighed. “Ok, that sounded grim, but I do mean it. If we sign on with you, we’re the Inquisition’s through and through. I saw the way you fought out there. I like your style.”

Some of the tension in her shoulders left her and she sent a strained smiled up at the qunari. “Welcome aboard then, Iron Bull.”

“Technically, it’s ’The’ Iron Bull, but we can talk through all of the technicalities later.”

She nodded and they turned to head back to the group by the beached boat.

Solas caught her arm before she went back. He felt her mind tense at the sudden appearance of him, well and awake when he was also unconscious several yards away. 

“S-Solas?” She asked, startled. 

“Inquisitor. Come, we must talk.”

“I-I… what? What’s going on?”

He sighed, berating himself for attempting this without setting the stage himself. It was far harder to connect to people of this time, choked as they were from the Fade, and he should not have been so sloppy. He grabbed her hand, and pulled her over into the first place that occurred to him, quickly dropping the hand before her mind could get its bearings. 

“Why here?” she asked, looking around, seeming to have understood what had just happened. He saw that understanding start to slip from her with every passing second and was sorry for it. The lack of magic in this future was something he still found difficult to face.

“Haven is familiar.” 

He did not know how to have this conversation. He knew what he wanted, and what he wanted was at odds with what he needed. The skies darkened as the turmoil in his mind turned them stormy. His control was tenuous at best - he knew it, and apparently the Fade knew it as well.

He half-hoped that this would just be another dream for her - that his presence would not disturb the natural degradation of her memories of this conversation. There was less risk that way and as he had no idea what exactly he was intending, it would likely end up being for the best if she would not remember a thing. 


	5. A Figure of Speech

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Possibly my favorite scene in the game.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't help but be pretty satisfied with myself that the timing worked out with me posting this chapter on valentines day.

Snow crunched under Eres’ feet as she and Solas walked in silence along one of the small paths snaking between the empty buildings of Haven. Nothing stirred, nothing moved, there was an odd sort of pressure in the air that set small shivers running over Eres’ skin, unrelated to cold temperature.

Something was wrong.

She scanned the surrounding area, listening hard for an unseen enemy waiting in the shadows all around.

Solas seemed distracted, but completely unperturbed about the potential for danger. He walked with a slink, leading the way up to the chantry looking, for all intents and purposes, lost in thought. 

A little drizzle of sleet began to fall, drops chilling Eres wherever they made contact with her skin. Solas sighed at the change in weather, but continued walking steadily up to the large wooden doors of the Chantry. The declaration of the Inquisition still hung there, flapping feebly in the wind. 

She couldn't help looking over her shoulder every few seconds.

Something was very, very wrong.

Leliana was not under her tent, nor was Threnn hovering over her requisitions table. The entire town was deathly quiet. How had she not noticed when she walked past? Eres instinctively reached for her daggers, but she must have been more unnerved than she thought, because her hand scrabbled at her back for a moment - unable to find the hilts that she had reached for a thousand times. She was never unarmed in Haven, and she would not have been so stupid as to leave them… wherever she was before walking with Solas. Panicking slightly now, she swept her hand over where they should be, and her fingers finally made contact with the leather-wrapped hilts. Gods, she needed to calm down. That was just plain sloppy. She grabbed the knives, clutching them like a child clutching a security blanket - a razor sharp, metallic security blanket. There was nothing like being armed to the teeth to soothe the nerves. 

Responding to her distress, the mark on her hand flared a brilliant green and Eres mentally cursed at it for significantly ruining what little chance she had of slipping into stealth if there was an enemy on the prowl. She’d only had it flare up once before in reaction to her mental state - when she had been lost in time with Dorian. She had watched Iron Bull be cleaved down by a demon and left to bleed out on the debris covered ground. Solas had tried to lay down an ice mine to freeze any enemies coming through the door to buy them some time, but a fear demon had come up from the ground and snapped his neck, tossing his lifeless body aside like someone would toss away a crumpled piece of parchment. Her mark had roared to life then, as tears came unbidden while the oncoming demons advanced on the husk of Leliana. She hadn’t talked to anyone about it. She probably should have said something to Solas about the mark reacting like that, but talking about the unexpected flare would mean talking about the emotional upheaval that had triggered it, and that was firmly filed away in her mind - a hard knot of pain and horror that was not for anyone else to try to understand. Past that, the mark had sat dormant unless she got near a fade rift. Glowing green light ruining her tactics hadn’t really come up as an issue, but now the pressure in the air combined with the sheer strangeness of a deserted Haven had broken though her calm. Broken through in a big way. 

Solas’ head jerked up in the corner of her eye as he caught sight of the dancing green light hitting the wooden door he had been about to push open. He turned to look at her quizzically, eyebrows creased together in a frown. For the first time he seemed to notice her agitation, eyes widening at her fighting stance and the weapons in her hands.

He burst out laughing. Not one of the little chuckles that she had managed to draw from him on rare occasion, but an honest to the gods belly laugh. As he laughed, the sky cleared and the air seemed to almost tangibly lose some of it’s maddening density. She could not take her eyes off of him. It didn’t register until several moments later that the sounds of Haven had only been covered up by the noise of sleet hitting stone. The people of Haven began to come outside now that the sleet had cleared and the wad of anxiety in the pit of Eres’ stomach relaxed. She found herself chuckling as well. She had been being stupid, paranoid. If she was going to be this on edge because of the bad sleep she’d gotten lately, she’d need to make an effort to be better about that. Couldn’t let her tiredness distract from her duties… as… Inquisitor? Haven? She was the Inquisitor. Why was she in Haven? _How_ was she in Haven? It had been destroyed when-

“I apologize, I have not done anything quite like this in a while,” Solas said, smiling down at her. 

“Done what?” she asked, tilting her head. 

He only inclined his chin, gesturing towards the chantry before walking inside. 

She shook her head, unsure of why she was holding her daggers in her hands. She sheathed them and followed him in. They walked down the stone steps to the dungeons where she had been kept as a prisoner. Solas drew to a halt. 

“I sat beside you while you slept, studying the anchor,” he said without preamble.

“How long can it take to look at a mark on my hand?”

That earned her another smile as he said, “A magical mark of unknown origin? Tied to a unique breach in the veil? Longer than you might think.” He paused, eyebrows knitting together. “I ran every test I could imagine. Searched the fade, yet found nothing. Cassandra suspected duplicity. She threatened to have me executed as an apostate if I didn’t produce results.”

“Cassandra’s like that with everyone.”

He chuckled, but it didn’t have the warmth of the big laugh he had given her outside. Seeming distracted, he turned and she followed, walking onto the dirt path in front of the chantry. A question rose to her lips as her brain tried to understand how they had just stepped from a dungeon to the outdoors, but Solas continued, “You were never going to wake up. How could you, a mortal sent physically through the fade? I was frustrated, frightened. The spirits I might have consulted had been driven away by the Breach. Although I wished to help, I had no faith in Cassandra… or she in me. I was ready to flee.”

She stared at him. Never before had he volunteered anything about himself directly. He had occasionally asked probing, hostile questions to Dorian about slavery in Tevinter or questioned Bull about the Qun, both of which made made his feelings abundantly clear on certain topics. She had also managed wheedle out of him where he was from, but he had not, to the best of her knowledge talked about his actual thoughts and worries ever before. Not in this way. She was suddenly ravenous for more. She wanted to know everything, wanted to see inside his mind, find out everything she possibly could about this strange, reclusive mage. She pushed it all down, drawing in a big breath and exhaling slowly, not wanting to shock him out of whatever mood had gotten him to be so free with his words.

“The breach threatened the whole world. Where did you plan to go?”

“Someplace far away where I might research a way to repair the Breach before its effects reached me. I never said it was a good plan.” He said with the hint of a smile. “I told myself: one more attempt to seal the rifts. I tried and failed. No ordinary magic would affect them. I watched the rifts expand and grow, resigned myself to flee, and then…”

His fingers dug into her wrist as he wrenched it up to the glowing tear in reality, nearly dislocating her shoulder. Power shot down to her hand, leaving an intense burn all throughout her arm. Touching the rift felt like touching steam made solid - burning and intangible, but tactile at the same time.

Eres had no idea what was happening.

The bald elven man wouldn’t let go when she tried to yank her hand free to stop the pain. He applied more pressure to the the tendons under his fingers and her fist curled in response. The magic cut off and the rift imploded, leaving the sky empty. She jerked her hand away immediately, looking down at it in alarm. 

“What did you do?”

“ _I_ did nothing. The credit is yours,” said the elf, gesturing at her hand. 

The mark radiated pain up her arm as she flexed her fingers, hot streaks of it skating throughout her body. She found herself glaring up at the Breach, mentally daring it to try and expand again.

“At least this is good for something.”

“Whatever magic opened the breach in the sky also placed that mark upon your hand. I theorized the mark might be able to close the rifts that have opened in the Breach’s wake… And it seems I was correct.”

The Seeker strode forward, excited, or at least, as excited as Eres suspected she was able to be - that one didn’t seem like a woman that was terribly free with her emotions.

“Meaning it could also close the Breach itself.”

“Possibly.”

The elf held the eye contact with her longer than was a comfortable.

“It seems you hold the key to our salvation,” Solas said, eyes boring into hers. She looked right back, studying him, trying to understand what was happening behind those eyes. There was some sadness there, but mostly… wonder. He was looking at her with such intense fascination that time seemed to stop.

“You had sealed it with a gesture… and right then, I felt the whole world change.”

Her head spun. Soft snowflakes drifted around them and the world was quiet. 

“Felt the whole world change?” She asked softly.

He did not pull away from her. Did not break their gaze. 

“A figure of speech.” 

“I’m aware of the metaphor. I’m more interested in ‘felt’.” She stepped closer to him, heart pounding. Her whole body thrummed as she neared.

“You change… everything.”

His voice broke on the last word and he looked away. The tension started to rise between them, and with it the panic started to rise as well.

If this chance passed... 

She reached out and grabbed his chin, turning him to look at her once more. Without breaking their gaze she leaned up and pressed her lips to his. In the moment before she let her eyes close, she saw his flash with shock. She broke the kiss off early, far too quickly for her taste, but satisfied in that she had at least tried. He had turned away, and she had gone for it anyway. She just hoped that he would forgive her if it had been unwelcome. 

She made to walk away, but a hand gripped her arm and spun her back to him, and he was suddenly there, lips against hers once more - kissing her with a fire that made her knees weak. He gripped her body to him, bending her back, making her dizzy with the intensity. All of the caution present in her initial kiss had flown off into the wind, never to be seen again. His lips had lost their startled softness, and now crushed against hers, demanding and hungry. He ran his tongue over her bottom lip and she parted it from her top, allowing his tongue to slip in and caress hers with deft, practiced movements. She drew her hand up to his cheek and stroked along his jaw as she had imagined doing a time or two on some lonely nights out in the Hinterlands. His hands tightened at her waist, but he drew back, shaking his head, eyes dark with desire. She barely had time to store that particular mental image away before he leaned back in for one last searing kiss that made her certain he was trying to say that that was it - no more. She, on the other hand, was fairly certain that she would level a mountain if it meant he would kiss her like that again. 

“We shouldn’t. It isn’t right. Not even here.” 

Eres bit her lip, relishing the the almost bruised feel of it, and considered what he had said while she waited for her world to right itself. There were many things wrong with that statement, but the earlier parts sounded like a conversation he didn’t want to have. The last bit caught her attention.

“What do you mean, ‘even here’?”

He grinned at her, eyes full of some incomprehensible devilish delight. “Where did you think we were?”

She looked around, eyes wide. The familiar outlines of Haven flickered and faded away into the valley where she had left her clan.

“This isn’t real,” she said in wonder.

“That’s a matter of debate… probably best discussed after you _wake up.”_

His last two words pushed into her consciousness, urging her awake far past a simple suggestion. She opened her eyes and sat bolt up right, squinting in the glare of pale morning light streaming into her still unfamiliar surroundings. She was in her bed at Skyhold, fully clothed and wearing her damnable boots under the blanket. Had she been asleep?

She pressed her hands to her eyes and groaned. She allowed her mind to go still for a few moments, doing nothing but listening to the wind whistling past the windows of her room and focussing inwards on her breathing. Slowly, certain things began to drift up, and she considered each point carefully. First, she had not been in Haven. That was impossible. Second, she had just had the single most intense kiss of her life. Third… it had only been in a dream. She sighed. The tricks her subconscious played on her at night were getting very, very good. She pressed her eyes harder, rubbing until she saw stars and slumped back. 

How was she supposed to look at him now? Now that she had let herself _go there_ in her dreams. It had been hard enough when she had just been idly fantasizing about him, now there was a vivid image of being with him, burned into her mind. 

She growled out one low “Fenedhis” and closed her eyes once again - not ready to face the oncoming day. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dreamy-trippy chapters are super fun to write, fyi.
> 
> I like the idea that Solas hasn't had to actively build a world for someone in a dream for a long time. Especially someone observant. Also, I'm thinking that he hasn't EVER really constructed a dream setting for someone that was not at least a mage, and he didn't plan as well as he could have for her disorientation.


	6. Rememberances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eres receives some worrying news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dalish teens! AHH! DALISH TEENS!

_A dream. It had all been a dream._  

She repeated this mantra to herself as she sunk down deeper in the water. Josephine had really come through for her this time, taking an off-hand joke about a marble bath seriously. The tub was metal, but the warm bath? Perfect. Eres would have to think of some way to repay her for this gods send. She had been unable to fall asleep again after waking from the dream and had taken the extra time in her morning to indulge in the warm water. 

Eres nudged a few bubbles around the tub with her knee. She was unsure when the dream had started. The last thing she remembered before waking up in her bed was walking with Solas into one of the unexplored bits of the castle. Had she fallen asleep from exhaustion? The thought was mildly alarming. She was never one for letting her guard down unless she had personally confirmed an area was secure, but then, she supposed, it had been. It was, technically speaking, a small room with one exit located in the heart of a keep that was apparently hers now, so perhaps her survival instincts earned a biscuit for that. Still, to pass out in front of Solas? Fuck, that was embarrassing. He must think that her stamina was on-par with that of an Orlesian court lady. She would have to go and punch something. Hard. And in public. Maybe Iron Bull. If she could lay out Iron Bull, perhaps that would fix some of her wounded pride. Maybe then she’d be able to look Solas in the eye. 

She pictured him, staring at her, eyes full of lust as she had seen in her dream, and sunk her head fully under the water. 

No, there would be no looking at Solas for some time. 

As she came up for air, there was a knock at her door, and Leliana pushed in without waiting for a response. 

“Inquisitor -“ Leliana froze, seeing Eres in the tub set in the middle of her room. “Ah, I can come back later when you have finished.”

Eres waved a hand dismissively. Nudity was never an issue in her clan. Not until someone made it one, at least. There was a world of difference between bathing with a friend in a state of undress and having someone really _look_ at that state of undress. Leliana, she thought, would understand the difference. 

She sat down on the edge of Eres’ bed and said, “You missed a spot of soap. Just there, in your hair behind your ear.”

“Thanks.” She dipped her head back and scrubbed at the soap in question.

“We received an unusual message this morning. I thought perhaps you would like to handle the matter now, and not wait until the mid-morning war council.”

“What is it?” Eres asked, stilling at the worry in Leliana’s voice.

“Your clan. They are having some troubles with bandits outside of Wycome.”

Eres shot up out of the tub and reached for a robe. She may have been a bad Dalish elf, but she was still a Dalish elf and that clan was her family. “Deshanna’s worried enough to send a message to me about it?” 

She hastily tied up the silly silk thing that, according to Josephine, had been a gift from someone named Jean-Gaspard in an attempt to win her favor in the competition for the ruler of Lydes.

“Yes, a fast message, at that. One of your hunters rode out to Kirkwall and got in contact with Varric’s friend there. Someone named Merrill traveled here to get the message to us. It is surprising that she managed to get here so quickly, actually. Perhaps ask her about it if you get the chance.”

“I’ve met her. She visited our clan when we were passing through the Kirkwall area. Warned us away from some mountain. You’re sure it’s her?” 

Leliana smiled. “Varric is, even now, dragging ‘Daisy’ around introducing her to everyone. I suspect that Varric’s ‘secret friend’ will be excited to see her as well. Likely that’s where you’ll find them.”

Eres nodded, pulling on her leather coat over her robe. “Send your people to my clan as fast as you possibly can. Isn’t Girder still up by Starkhaven?” 

“Yes, Alouette and Rev are also nearby. I shall send them a raven immediately.” She took in Eres’ dripping hair and odd assortment of clothes with a raised brow. “Inquisitor, I think you might have time to dress. It is doubtful that she traveled all this way to meet with us and would leave so quickly that a few minutes can’t be spared.”

There was sense in that, Eres had to admit. She tore off the coat and robe and began clothing herself correctly, thinking hard about just how much trouble the clan would need to be in if Deshanna thought that Eres’ help was necessary while she was so maddeningly far away. That’s what this was, after all. Deshanna would take the spies and agents Eres sent, but she wanted Eres herself. Eres was always the one to save her before. Granted, she was usually the one to get Deshanna into trouble in the first place, but she was also the one that could fix it. 

_“Creators, you’re like my own personal Fen’Harel.”_

_Eres laughed but didn’t reply._

_“Tell me again why this is a good idea?” Deshanna asked, struggling to keep up with Eres as they moved through the boughs of trees in the dark._

_“It’s not a good idea, it’s a GREAT idea.”_

_“But what if we get caught?”_

_Eres stopped and turned to her, “Then, Lethallin, you will be cast out, never again destined to be our stalwart keeper.” She threw a hand up to her forehead and mimed a swoon._

_Deshanna giggled nervously._ _“It’s all right for you, but seriously, Eres, I’m not even a Lavellan. Your family is here. I’m just some nobody mage they found in the woods and took in.”_

_Eres frowned. “Your family is here now too. You know they made you first for a reason. Don’t give me any of this ‘ohhh I’m just a weak little mageling’ shit. You damn near levelled that forest we found you in. There’s no way Keeper Verwyn would kick you out. Now come on. We have to move fast.”_

_They continued on through the forest in silence._

_Deshanna believing things like that left a nasty taste in Eres' mouth. Deshanna’s arrival in Clan Lavellan had poked at a hornets' nest of politics, and few months later when she had replaced Kynan as first, all hell had really broken loose. It was astounding to think that it all had only happened a year and a half ago. Before that she had been left in the wilderness when her former keeper's child had turned out to be mage, thus creating a surplus. The keeper had opted to exile Shanna rather than his own child, which was how Eres and a few other hunters had found the emaciated teenage girl. She had been crouching over a small blue fire in the middle of the woods, one night while they were out on patrol. Eres had only just made hunter herself, and the sight of someone her own age so thoroughly abandoned had sickened her. She had approached without thinking, and Deshanna had literally exploded out a spray of ice daggers in all directions, ripping into Eres’ skin with what was, thankfully, a non-fatal blow. Deshanna had collapsed then - she had been too hungry and too tired to have been doing magic of that intensity, and it had drained her completely. The hunters had taken Deshanna back to where the clan was camped, questioning her upon waking before inviting her to join them. Eres knew Deshanna still felt guilty every time she saw the scar along Eres’ cheek from their first meeting and Eres had still never been able to convince her friend that it truly was not a big deal._

_The two girls drew up on the edge of a city surrounded by a high stone wall. With a wide grin, Eres pulled out a long length of rope and tied the end into a noose. She tied a scarf over the loop, threading it through the rope's weave. Deshanna watched, confused, undecided whether she should be alarmed or amused._

_“Do the flying thing,” Eres said, waving the end of the rope at Deshanna._

_“The ‘flying thing’ is the the heating of the air mixed with a directional mind blast, and it’s actually a very delicate bit of -“_

_“Yeah, that’s the one.”_

_Deshanna sighed. “Remind me again why we can’t just go in through the gate?”_

_Eres chuckled, “We’re ‘terrifying Dalish savages’, remember? I’d rather not get an arrow in the knee before we even get inside. Now come on. Flying thing.”_

_“We don’t even have Vallaslin yet! They wouldn’t know.”_

_Eres didn’t reply and only continued waving the rope at her. Deshanna gave up and focussed on it. The rope rose evenly through the night air and Deshanna positioned it so that the loop fell neatly onto a spoke of stone at the top of the wall._

_“Nice,” said Eres appreciatively, reaching for it to begin climbing up._

_A hand fell on hers and yanked it away from the rope. Eres wheeled and found Kynan standing there, glaring._ _“Fenedhis, Eres, what do you think you’re doing?!” He hissed at her._

 _The second_ _of the clan was a tall boy, thin even for an elf. His face was sharp and dark and had a strange sort of appeal to it, though no one feature was particularly striking. Eres had held a helplessly big crush on him for a while, though it had faded in recent times. The fact that her best friend had effectively demoted him to never being the leader of the clan didn’t help what little relationship there was there either._

_With his hand on hers, Eres flushed, remembering their fumbling attempt at something very nearly like sex several months earlier. She had kissed him with the fire only a childhood crush could conjure up one night in the back of the partially constructed aravel her mother had been building. He had responded in kind with feverish excitement, nipping at her neck and pushing his tongue into her mouth. He had moved his hands up under her tunic and squeezed too hard at her chest. She had taken that as a sign that she could put her hands down his breeches and feel what the situation was like down there, but he had almost immediately convulsed, and she had pulled her hand away in shock, wiping her hand off on his shirt without thinking. Kynan had stormed off that night in a huff of what she now understood to be embarrassment, but at the time had thought was anger, and they had spoken little to none since then. Well, except for one more clandestine meet up in the now-finished, yet-to-be-furnished aravel a few weeks ago… that time it had been fumbling actual-sex. They had laid together afterwards on a ratty canvas her mother had spread on the floor to catch the drips of paint from the walls she had been working on. He had whispered to her that she was amazing and she had only nodded, feeling, more than anything, that she would like to slip away back to her own aravel and sleep. She liked him, but was starting to get the distinct impression that he was more invested in her than she really was with him and it made her antsy. Childhood crush notwithstanding, she hadn’t felt that… something she had been hoping for with him, and now she wasn’t really sure what to do._

_“I am trying to break into Starkhaven. To the apothecary, specifically. They have powdered arbor blessing in there and it could help save Ewan. What are you doing?” She asked pointedly._

_He scowled at her. “Stopping you! Keeper Verwyn said Ewan will be fine. She’ll heal him. I know he’s your brother, but come on, this is stupid.”_

_“Actually, Keeper Verwyn said ‘there is little I can do except ease the pain. Do we have enough coin for powdered arbor blessing?’ and when the response was no, she sighed and went back to watching over him,” Eres said, narrowing her eyes and crossing her arms._

_Kynan rolled his eyes. “Look, you’re going to get caught. You’re going to piss off the shems and get us all killed.”_

_“No no no, that’s not part of the plan. Plus, now I have two big, strong mages here to make sure I don’t screw things up. Let’s go.”_ _She winked and turned back to the rope, scaling a quarter of the wall before Kynan could retort._

_She looked down and saw him glaring at Deshanna, who glared right back before grabbing onto the rope herself. 'Atta girl._

_Eres made it to the top and helped heave Deshanna and Kynan up in turn. They looked out over the edge onto the other side, but saw no one on the ground. Eres pulled the rope up and hung it over the inside of the wall, and the three repelled down, dropping into the shadows behind a wooden shack. Eres peeked out from behind the wall, then straightened in minor horror._

_“This is where elves live in the city?” she whispered._

_The houses were run down and cobbled together from moldy looking bits of wood. The streets were filled with refuse and a nasty looking gutter ran brownish with what she sincerely hoped was water. The only thing mildly worth looking at was a vhenadahl, an enormous tree in the center of the shacks. That was how she even knew it was the elven part of town._

_“This… is worse than I expected,” Deshanna whispered behind her and Kynan grunted in agreement._

_“Well, at least we’re in the right place. I heard that shem merchant the other week saying that he hated going to the alienage to get elfroot for the rash on his…” Eres trailed off. She had spotted movement towards the gate leading out to Starkhaven proper. Guards? Had they been seen scaling the wall?_

_The movement ceased and Eres let out the breath she had been holding. Assuming that the apothecary would be on the main thoroughfare of the alienage seemed like a safe bet. She stared around and quickly picked out a building that had a small painted plaque hanging outside depicting a mortar and pestle._

_“Come on, let’s do this.”_

_She slipped out of cover and darted for the door of the apothecary, the other two trying their best to follow quietly. She tried the handle, but it was locked, so she grabbed a lock pick out of a pouch on her belt._

_Kynan looked askance at her and hissed, “What do you have those for?”_

_Deshanna rolled her eyes and whispered back, “Situations like this, obviously.”_

_“How many situations like this do you two get into?”_

_“Wouldn’t you like to know.”_

_Eres shushed them both. With a small, satisfying click the lock unlatched and she swung the door open._ _The three shuffled in quietly._

_“Alright, spread out and look for something labelled ‘Arbor Blessing’. Fresh or powdered. We don’t have time to be picky.”_

_They scoured the small store, but found nothing._

_Deshanna said, “Maybe in the back room?” and moved to a door at the rear of the shop. Eres noticed something on the floor at Deshanna’s feet, but before she could gasp out a warning Deshanna stepped on the nearly invisible glyph and ice shot up her legs, freezing her in place. She let out a cry of pain and running footsteps came from the other side of the door Deshanna had been about to reach for._

_“Fuck! Deshanna hold still! Kynan, thaw it!”_

_The boy stumbled over to Deshanna, dropping to his knees, laying faintly glowing hands on the shards of ice trapping her. The ice began to melt, but the footsteps were getting closer. Shit shit shit._

_Eres stood up out of the shadows. There was nothing for it. They were made. She would explain to the shopkeeper what she needed to save her brother and pray that he understood and would help out a fellow elf in need. But when the door swung open, it was a shem standing in it, clad in full plate armor. He took in the scene before him before barking out a laugh._

_“Three more, Mercius! Good haul this time, eh?” He shouted over his shoulder. Eres heard a muffled response and instinctively went for the daggers at her back. She didn’t understand what was happening, but holding a weapon made her feel that their chances of getting out of it were significantly improved._

_Another shemlen, this one wearing a gilded robe, strode past the armored man and into the room, staring at the two elves in front of him and Eres in the corner clutching her daggers. He held up a staff and shot two bolts of ice out, one at Kynan and one at Eres. Kynan was too close to dodge, but Eres managed to get out of the way. The magic shattered a shelf of delicate glass bottles filled with herbs behind her. She rolled up onto her feet and threw one of her smaller knives at his head, trying to think through her panic. He dodged it easily and let out a laugh._

_“Ohhh, we have a fighter here, Victor. Chain the other two and put them down with the rest. I’ll see if I can’t break our new, little knife-eared friend.”_

_How could she kill a mage? She’d only ever hunted animals. This was severely outside of the realm of what she knew how to deal with. Deshanna let out a terrified little squeak as the armored man came back into the room and clapped chains around her wrists and Kynan’s. The robed man and Eres stared each other down, locked in a standoff. The mage snapped his fingers and the ice vanished, leaving Deshanna and Kynan to stumble forward, being dragged out of Eres’ view by the big armored man._

_“Now then, little elfling, why don’t you try that again?” The mage said with a smirk that made fire flare in her veins. She came at him, daggers flashing and he immediately threw her back with some unseen force, laughing when she hit the wall before crumpling to the ground. Ok, so head on attacks were no good with mages. Good to know. The man didn’t seem to be in any particular rush to kill her, and she suspected that he would much, much rather take her alive. She stayed down, feigning shock and debated what to do next. She fumbled in her pockets while the mage drew closer and found what she needed. She hurled the small pellet at the floor. Immediately a cloud of smoke erupted up, filling the air with a dense wall of home-made invisibility. If he couldn’t see, he couldn’t aim._

_She leapt to her feet, listening hard. A small gasp of surprise at the sudden smoke came from the northeast and she crept around behind the point she identified as the mage’s position. A flash of lightening shot out at her from the cloud and she dove sideways, slashing out with her knife. There was a grunt of pain, and the sound of a body falling to the ground. The smoke was starting to clear and she saw the mage on all fours, looking wildly around for her. She had sliced a tendon in his leg. He caught sight of her and started sending bolt after bold of lightning her way, aiming to kill now. She leapt and rolled away, working her way closer and closer to him. With a quick flip, she was over him and stabbing him in the back. He went face down on the floor, but was still breathing. She didn’t know what to do. Cautiously, she used her foot to flip him face up and saw the blood trickling out of his mouth, eyes rolling around and glassy._

_“Mercy,” he coughed out, blood flying in small droplets onto her tunic as she looked on in horror. Slowly, knowing it was the right thing to do, but disgusted nonetheless, she bent down and drew her dagger across his throat. The light left his eyes. Eres stood staring at the first person she had ever killed. After a few moments there was a cry from the basement that snapped her out of her reverie._

_She took off at a sprint, leaping down the stairs. The armored man was on his knees, wailing in agony as flames shot out at him from between the bars of a large cage filled with elves. Deshanna and Kynan were there at the front, hands pushed through the bars, both of them pouring flame in a sloppy stream out of their palms on the the armored man._

_“Eres!” Deshanna cried, “On your left!”_

_Eres whipped around and saw two more hulking humans in armor advancing on her with swords drawn. She threw another smoke pellet at the floor and slipped up behind one, stabbing at the gap in his armor at his sword arm’s armpit. She was rewarded with a roar of pain and the sound of steel clattering to the ground. There was a whoosh of air and the other man’s sword came swinging out at her from the wall of smoke, slicing across her chest and arm, sending blinding pain shooting out from the cut._

_Smoke clearing, she saw the one she had stabbed on the ground, an excessive amount of blood leaking from between the plates of his mail. She must’ve clipped an artery. Kynan reached out and sent a bolt of electricity at him, that lit up his metal suit and left him unmoving. Eres turned to face the last guard and they circled each other. He had strength on her, but she had speed. She faked left and he reacted. She plunged forwards while he lurched in the wrong direction, pushing both daggers through the gap between his helmet and gorget, stabbing him straight through the neck. He fell immediately and Eres stood panting, covered in blood spatters._

_“Miss! Miss please, please find the key!”_

_“I want to go home!”_

_“Get us out of here!”_

_The elves in the cage were suddenly pressing up against the front bars, nearly crushing Deshanna and Kynan. Half-dazed, Eres looked around for the key, dimly aware that it was likely on the dead body she had left upstairs. She could have picked the lock, but her hands were shaking far too badly for that to be a viable option._

_“H-hang on, the key is upstairs. I’ll be right back!” She said in an oddly breathy voice that didn’t sound anything like her own._

_The people in the cage started to panic as she left their line of sight. She could hear them crying out as she ascended the stairs and rifled through the pockets of the mage’s robe. She found the keys and rushed back down, flinging open the door and nearly being trampled as the elves poured out. A few stopped to hug her and whisper “'Ma serannas, Da'len” before they stormed up the stairs and out into the night._

_Kynan and Deshanna came out last, looking as in shock as Eres felt._

_“We have to get out of here,” Deshanna said in a quiet voice, determinedly not looking at the body of the man she had immolated._

_Eres nodded wordlessly, and the three slipped out of Starkhaven the way they had come. They returned to the clan in silence._

_Keeper Verwyn was standing outside of Eres’ aravel when she got there, looking grim. The old keeper took in the sight of Eres’ ripped and bloody appearance with wide, horrified eyes. "_ _Da’len! What have you been doing?”_

_Eres couldn’t form the words. Couldn’t make eye contact. She pushed past the keeper and into her family’s aravel to find her mother sitting next to her brother, openly weeping. His small body was no longer glistening with sweat, and his skin was alarmingly gray. Keeper Verwyn entered after Eres, laying a hand on her shoulder._

_“Da’len,” Verwyn said quietly, “I- I’m so sorry. He took an abrupt turn for the worse. I tried to find you so that you could say your goodbyes…” Her voice trailed off._

_Eres could not process it._

_“H-he walks with Falon’din now.”_

_Ewan. Ewan who wove flowers around the string of the bow she never used. Ewan who would fall asleep in her lap, snoring softly as she told him made up stories about the wonders of Arlathan and Halamshiral. Ewan with the baby halla that had taken to following him around the camp. Ewan who would have grown up to be a gentler and better man than this world would have ever deserved. Gone. She was numb. There was no understanding, no grief, no anger, only a resounding nothingness gripping her soul. She turned from what had once been her family and was now only her mother and walked out into the night._

_Deshanna was out there. She opened her mouth to say something, but fell silent at the look on Eres’ face. Eres felt her pace quicken. She started running. She tore out of the camp. Running until she couldn’t feel her legs moving beneath her any longer, though they did. She ran and ran into the night before collapsing in the middle of a field far, far, far from everything she recognized. There she lay and wept until her tears ran dry._

_She had failed him._

She would not fail Deshanna. 

“Keep me informed of any news that comes back from Wycome,” Eres ordered, striding out of her room now fully dressed. 

“Yes, Inquisitor,” said Leliana bowing her head in agreement. 

She strode out into the great hall, and barely batted an eye when Vivienne sent her a knowing look and inquired after her sleep. There were more important things to deal with now. She had to find Merrill. 


	7. Daisy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnd, here is where I'm starting to off-road a bit because there is approximately a 0% chance my Inquisitor would've not gone to Wycome. 
> 
> Also, heeeeey first time trying to write Cole. I'm nervous hah.

Solas lay stretched out on the couch for a long time, watching the splatters of bird droppings fall on his invisible barrier. They exploded with a soft “plunk!” as they hit, one by one. His excursion with Eres in her dreams had been… informative. For instance, he now understood that she was far too clever for her own good. She had been on the verge of waking herself up multiple times, and probably would have if he hadn’t enchanted her asleep in the first place. If he was to do that again, it would take more careful planning.

No. He should not do that again. 

Trying to puzzle over the Inquisitor's mental capabilities did very little to keep his mind from drifting back to the other thing that had happened in the dream. The kiss.

Her lips on his had been electric. She had tried to leave, to pull back before his mind had caught up to what was happening and he had experienced a blinding moment of desperation, stretching much further than he would like to admit past simple lust. He wanted her. Not just anyone - her, specifically. Images of him tugging her back and the sensations that had come pouring out from that kiss danced around in his mind, like a torturous parade. It had been so long since he had kissed anyone, much less kissed them like that. He couldn’t even remember a time it had been like that.

He rolled on his side, trying to forget the way she had melted under his touch; the way her fingers felt, dragging over his face; the way she had nipped his bottom lip before allowing him to deepen the kiss, and most of all, he definitely was trying to forget the way she had looked at him afterwards. Her cheeks had been flushed, her eyes full of something that his body responded to in a… distracting way.

He needed a walk.

Solas rolled himself up, rubbing his head, wondering if he should perhaps venture out to collect some herbs to plant in courtyard. Anything to keep his hands and preferably mind busy. There was never enough for him to be doing since he had joined the Inquisition. His agents were ordered to report to him only sparingly as long as he was sequested in the Inquisition's ranks, which left too little to focus on. He tried to fill his time with reading all of the texts that had come out over the years he had missed, but seeing the layers and layers of errors about his empire grew tiresome. He painted to distract himself as well, though he had hardly gotten started in Skyhold. The mixing of the colors and the discipline that went into murals helped him keep his hands busy. He reached an almost meditative state as he worked, usually, but that would not help him today. Not when he was so fixated on one particular thing.

He wandered out of the entrance hall doors and headed vaguely for the main gate.

“Hearts and hands fluttering. Done before, but new. Different. More troubling.”

Solas’ head snapped up. The boy that had come to meet them in Haven preceding Corypheus was sitting on the ground fiddling with a dandelion. He looked up at Solas from under his floppy hat.

“Why is she special?”

“Hello. You are Cole, are you not?” Solas asked, trying to ignore the fact that the boy had effectively condensed his train of thought to a few sentences.

“Yes, that is my name.” He picked idly at his flower.

“A pleasure to meet you, I am Solas.”

“Solas. Solas. Pride covered once by a mantle meant to shame. Now the name is the disguise itself.”

Solas stared at the boy. That... was problematic. He had suspected Cole was a spirit, and his suspicions were now confirmed. No mortal could have that kind of insight into his mind.

“You are perceptive. How long have you been out of the fade?” Solas asked. He would need to understand which feeling Cole represented, if he was to have any choice in what should be done with the spirit. 

“A while. I like it here. I can help more here.”

Ah. Compassion.

“There are people here more in need than I.”

Cole dropped the flower and turned his oddly glassy pale eyes up at Solas. “No,” he said simply.

Solas raised his eyebrows.

“Their hurts are fleeting, fast things. I help as best I can, but then it’s onto the next. Your pain is steady, sad, sinking. Festered with time, hardened by inaction.”

Solas frowned at the spirit. If the boy was truly able to see that much… The irony was not lost on him that something that’s sole purpose was to make him feel better was actually making him feel infinitely worse. Clearly he was acting as a beacon to this compassion spirit - drawing him in like insects were drawn to torches at night.

“Tell me, Cole, do you feel that talking about my past mistakes will help me?”

“Yes... The pain needs to come up, to be let out before it can get better.”

He would have to try and logic the spirit out of this drive to save him, or there would be nothing for it. “And what if I am trying to remedy those mistakes? Would my failing to follow through on my plans help or hurt the pain?”

Cole stood and looked at Solas, tilting his head like a mabari puppy looking at something it found particularly perplexing. “But… don’t you want to feel better?”

“What I want is immaterial. What I need is to right what was wronged.” Solas drew up a mental image of what would happen if he was discovered, entwining some of his mana into the thoughts so that the spirit would not be able to miss the importance.

“Everyone deserves to feel better. But… Eyes wide with fear to redeem those that feared before. Frightening, fragmented, shattered. It will not be real until it is again. The way forward is clear.” Cole stared up at him. “You don’t know that.”

“I do, Cole. I truly do,” he could not help the bitterness in his voice. The compassion spirit was fulfilling its purpose, apparently, and loosening some of the things he tried to hide away in distant parts of his mind.

“I-I don't want you to have to kill me.”

Strange that a spirit had such preservation of self. Solas sighed. Having a spirit of compassion around the Inquisition would likely do a world of good for morale, but then again, not finding out that one of their trusted companions was responsible for the Breach likely did a world of good as well. Still, as he studied the weak-chinned, floppy-hat adorned boy standing in front of him, he found himself immeasurably curious about him. He need only secure a guarantee of the spirit’s silence. Failing that, he supposed he could block the spirit’s abilities. Solas’ magic had been slowly trickling back to him, and he could likely manage at least that much.

“I apologize, Cole, but you will need to swear to me that you won’t try to help me.”

“I don’t know… I don’t know if I can?” Cole said plaintively.

“You must. No good will come of digging through things best left buried.”

Cole looked sadly at him, before slowly replying, “If it will help… I swear it.”

Solas let out a breath. “Thank you.”

The spirit’s head whipped around, looking off at a point over Solas’ right shoulder. “Bright, blindingly green, it’s… hard to see. Like looking into the sun. She’s scared. Everything to fight for could be lost. Something’s wrong, something’s very, very wrong. Word sent not on wings, but over land. Have to know. Have to save the ones that are so far from her reach before they become even farther.”

Solas turned, following Cole’s gaze and saw Eres sprinting out of the keep. She glanced over at where he stood with Cole, worry plain on her face even from this distance. The compassion spirit was nothing if not accurate, apparently.

“Cole, I’m going to-“ He turned and found Cole was no longer standing beside him.

Solas took off after the Inquisitor, though at a more stately pace than the dead run she had taken.

He climbed the stone steps up to the ramparts to see Eres slow to a stop in front of Varric and two people he didn’t recognize. Cole was sitting on the ledge by them, though apparently nobody had noticed besides Solas.

“Merrill? You’re Merrill right?” Eres panted.

“Oh, hello! Yes, and you’re the Inquisitor! Do I curtsy? I should probably curtsy,” said what looked to be another Dalish elf, following through on her threats of curtsying.

Varric grinned around at everyone. “Yeah, Sneaks, this is Daisy and this,” Varric gestured at the tall human woman leaning against the wall behind him. “Is Hawke.”

Eres raised an eyebrow. “Cassandra is going to kill you.”

“Yep, she probably will.”

“Cassandra… Is she that one that beat you up for a few weeks? I like her,” Hawke said, leaning up to shake Eres’ hand. “Pleasure, Inquisitor.”

“She’s been beating me up fairly regularly since I’ve joined this roadshow as well.” Varric gestured over to Solas, “And that over there’s Chuckles. Picked him up at the start of this mess too.”

Eres whipped around, saw Solas standing there, and quickly turned back to Merrill before Solas could get a gauge of her reaction to his presence in this conversation. He hadn’t wished to intrude, but he seemed to be doing exactly that.

“All introduced? Ok good. What’s happening with my clan?” Eres asked, voice tense.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to scare you. I knew a way to get here quickly, so I thought it would be better than sending a raven. Varric told me Hawke would be here and I thought we could have a bit of a reunion,” said Merrill, beaming over at Hawke.

Eres ran a hand through her hair distractedly. “Ok, yes, but the clan. Why did they need to send for me?”

“Right. Your keeper is worried about some bandits that have taken to raiding them. The messenger I met said they were behaving oddly. Attacking every night. It’s a bit strange, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Eres sighed. “It is.”

“She cares so much and wishes they cared like you do. Scars slice the wrist and the heart. Cast out, cursed as an abomination. I only wanted to help - to preserve what once was. It was worth it for the mirror. For the People.”

Everyone standing on the battlement turned to stare at Cole, just now letting himself be noticed.

“By the Dread Wolf!” Merrill squeaked. Solas’ eye twitched.

“Shit, Kid, where did you come from?” Varric asked, putting a hand to his chest.

“Cole, isn’t it?” asked Eres. Her eyes slid to Solas and he saw the question in them.

Cole piped up, “Yes. You were hurting, scared, so I came to help.”

“We were talking a few moments ago. It seems that Cole is a spirit, yet he appears human in all respects. I do not know if his nature lends itself to being easily defined.” Solas explained, hoping that no one would bring out a weapon before he could make them understand that the boy was not a threat.

“A spirit, huh? Is he possessing someone?” asked Hawke.

Cole gazed up at her and said, “I am not like him. He was sharing. I am only me.”

Hawke shot a look at Varric and settled back against the wall.

“How did you know about the eluvian?” asked Merrill, eyes wide.

“Wait, Daisy, you’re getting mixed up with that mirror thing again?”

A low rumble of excitement spread through Solas, and he paced closer to join the cluster of people officially.

“Eluvian?” he asked, trying not to let his interest show over much.

Merrill looked sheepish. “I-I’m not supposed to say anything about it,” she stuttered.

Eres glanced between the two other elves and asked, “What’s an eluvian?”

Solas didn’t reply, wanting to hear what this Merrill knew, and why Cole had spoken of it. Merrill looked around at the group of people all watching her, waiting, and uncomfortably cleared her throat.

“Well, it’s… it’s a mirror. From the times of Elvhenan. I thought they were a means of communication, so I took one home and fixed it. It never worked properly, though. Not even with some of my magic helping it along.”

Hawke snorted. “That’s simplifying it a bit, Merrill.”

Merrill flushed. “Yes well, it didn’t work… up until someone fell into my kitchen.”

Everyone stared.

“They what?” Hawke asked.

Merrill’s face reddened further, and she fiddled with the strappings on her staff. “Well, I was making dinner and then there was some glowy light on all the walls. I went to look at the mirror and someone just… sort of… fell out of it? It was a bit odd.”

Varric patted her elbow and said, “Yeah, Daisy, sounds like it would’ve been a _bit odd_.” Shaking his head on the last two words.

“How have I never heard of these?” asked Eres, frustration in her words. She was clearly displeased about being left out of this particular piece of the Elvhenan legacy.

Merrill noticed it too. “Oh no no, it’s not like eluvians are really common knowledge. I only knew about them because I found one with my old clan.”

Solas pressed on, wanting more details. If this Dalish girl had found the passcode to activate them… _“Dirthas mar el'u_ , Da'len. Who was it that fell into your kitchen?” he asked.

Merrill seemed caught off-guard by his use of the Elvhen language, but continued slowly. “It w-was a woman named Briala. I don’t think she was expecting to pop out into someone’s home. The bow she had pointed at me didn’t seem very hospitable.”

Solas stood very still, his excitement building. Briala. Felassan’s Briala. If Merrill had traveled here so quickly from the Free Marches, Briala must have given her the ability to use the eluvians. He could get the password from her.

“She frowned at me and asked where she was. I told her ‘you’re in the alienage in Kirkwall’, and she asked what I was doing there if I was Dalish. So I explained about helping the elves there and teaching them what I could and she finally lowered the bow, which was a relief… I don’t think she much likes the Dalish.”

“So she, what, told you how to walk into a mirror?” Eres asked, looking skeptical.

“Well, yes. It’s amazing! There’s a whole sort of… land? Path? Behind the mirrors. I only need to say a password, and the mirror opens up! There’s one not far from here. At the foot of the Frostbacks, near the Emprise du Lion.” Merrill suddenly frowned and turned to Hawke and Varric. “Briala made me promise that it was for Elves only. City elves only, specifically, unless a Dalish clan promised to use them to help the elves living in the city. I think she’s starting a bit of a revolution. Anyway, apparently the eluvians make non-elves quite sick if they travel through them.”

Varric shrugged. “Taking a pass on some old magic tunnel is fine by me.”

“I came here through the eluvian because it seemed a little more practical than waiting for a bird to fly across Thedas,” Merrill finished.

“Would you take me through, Merrill? To my clan?” Eres asked hope dripping in every word.

“Oh, yes, I think so. It seems the best way to get you to Wycome, but...if I do tell you the password, I don’t think Briala would want them being used for Inquisition things. It’s for the elves. Will you swear to only use them for helping our people?”

Eres choked out a strangled laugh. “Of course. I would never… Yes. I swear. Thank you.”

“You should not go alone, Inquisitor,” Solas said quietly. All eyes turned to him.

Eres gazed at him for a long moment, expression unreadable. “No, I suppose I shouldn’t. If these mirrors are to be elves only… Well, I guess Sera wouldn’t go as far as shooting me if I suggested it to her. Probably. She might only laugh me out of her room.”

“I can come too. Mirrors like me.” Cole added, thumping his heels against the wall he was seated on.

Solas wasn’t entirely sure what effect the in-between places would have on an almost pure spirit, but he suspected that Cole was correct.

Eres let out an unsteady breath. “Right, ok. We’ll plan to leave tomorrow. I have to wrap up business here before we can go.”

“Inquisitor, a word if you please. Preferably in private. My news is unrelated to Merrill’s business,” Hawke said, effectively dismissing everyone aside from Eres.

Solas walked away, Cole and Varric trailing behind him. It was that easy. He would be going through the eluvian tomorrow, and he would have the password for them all. He had been anticipating several week’s effort, stalking through the dreams of this Briala to pull it from her mind, but this was beyond anything he could’ve hoped for. Things were falling into place, even without his hand to directly guiding them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> from Project Elvhen by Fenxshiral  
> Dirthas mar el'u  
> "speak your secret"
> 
>  
> 
> I'm tying in one of my headcannons here from The Masked Empire. It's probably officially AU now since Trespasser came out, but ah well. I like to think that Briala's made good on her plan to use the Eluvians to help the city elves, and started spreading the word to other cities outside of Orlais. Having Merrill's eluvian fire up seemed a logical step if it wasn't destroyed in DA2. Plus, any chance my Inquisitor will get to smugly go "I know, bruh" when Morrigan tries to tell her about Elven culture pleases me immensely.


	8. Smudges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sera strikes a deal with Eres.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated F for Fluff... fluffy fluff.
> 
> Getting to the fun bits with the eluvian and the clan soon! I'm excited. Are you excited? We should probably all be excited.

“So let me get this straight: you want me to go walk through a frigging mirror into some elfy world of magic? “

“Yep, that’s the plan.”

“And we’d go through this shite mirror, full of shite magic, to go to the shite Free Marches and frolic with some shite elfy-elves?”

Eres calmly ducked as a flower vase whooshed past her head, shattering on the wall behind her. “Yes. Generally.”

“And I have to because I’m an elf and this- this thing poisons people? Andraste’s arse, you’re mad. You’re crazy. The glowy bit in your hand is making your brain weird.”

Eres carefully studied the wall, ignoring the pale ass cheeks waggling at her in the crisp sunlight. If Sera had moved onto the mooning phase of negotiations, then the fight was almost over. “Probably. But I have to go through that ‘shite mirror’ anyway,” Eres said, flicking a stray bit of flower off her shoulder from the vase that had gone sailing past her.

“Why can’t you just take Solas?”

“I already am, I want you along too.” 

“Sure I won’t be intruding on anything there? I’ve seen how you look at him. You’re in it. I bet he calls out “elven glory” when he does it.” 

Eres stared at her for a long moment, before doubling over with laughter. Sera, who had clearly been trying to throw her off was taken aback, but eventually joined in with a few loud guffaws. “Alright, alright. Maybe you’re mad, but at least you’re still fun. Tell you what, Quizzy, you beat me at the archery contest this afternoon, I’ll go through the stupid mirror thing.”

Eres immediately stopped laughing. “Couldn’t I… have Varric stand in for me?” she asked plaintively.

“No, it’s in the rules. No Bianca.”

“But this is my castle! I can change the rules!”

“Seeee you this afternoon! You can show us all how the Elfy-elves do it.”

Eres allowed herself to be shuffled out of the room. Well, she supposed, at least she had gotten out of that conversation without any gaping arrow wounds. That was something. And she did have time to participate in the contest. She had cancelled their trip to the Fallow Mire for the time being, so her afternoon was unusually free. It probably wouldn’t do to dwell in her worry while she had the spare time. Still. Archery. Shit. Eres knew Sera loved a spectacle, and the Inquisitor failing to simply shoot an arrow would certainly qualify as a spectacle. 

She left the tavern, kicking a rock along in front of her every few paces. The idea of seeing her clan as soon as tomorrow hadn’t quite managed to sink in yet. She was sure Merrill was being straight with her, but walking through a mirror to another world? It twinged her brain. She had spoken with Merrill after Hawke had said her piece about the grey wardens and Merrill had been vague about the eluvian to the point that Eres had wanted to shake her, just to free up more of the information that she was sure Merrill knew somewhere in her scattered brain. 

The alternative, of course, was talking to Solas about them, as he had seemed to know precisely what they were, but the idea of speaking alone with him while her nerves were so raw seemed more stressful than anything. Gods, what if he asked about her clan? Her stomach clenched as she remembered their introduction and his thoughts on the Dalish. The idea of being put in between them and him was an unpleasant one.

Thinking on it further, she decided that he would prove to at least be civil when acting as a guest to her clan, though. Rude was not Solas’ thing. Anger and self-righteousness? Maybe. But never rudeness for the sake of rudeness. She ruminated on what it would be like having him walk through her childhood, and found herself idly daydreaming of Solas laughing with Deshanna or examining her mother’s aravels. It took her by surprise how badly she wanted those mental images to happen. It was a huge step for her to allow this meeting between her old life and new, and if it didn’t go well… maybe she should just check in on him first before heading off, just to get a read on his mindset about everything. It would be the first time they had spoken directly since _that_ dream, but she supposed it was better to get over the awkwardness she felt now rather then when they were traveling together tomorrow. Sera didn't need to get any more ideas about Solas, her and “Elven Glory”.

She snorted as she aimed a hard kick at the rock. It ricocheted off the stone wall with a particularly satisfying crack, and she headed up the stairs to talk to Solas. 

She found him working on his mural, this time carefully painting the silhouette of a wolf. He was focussed in a way that she had seen few people focus, and she had to clear her throat loudly a few times to draw his attention. He jerked in surprise, but managed to lift his paint brush off the wall before he left a messy swath of color across the parts he had already painted. 

“Sorry.”

He turned, looking mildly alarmed and she saw that he had a small smudge of paint on his chin. “Oh, Lethallan. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I just, uh, wanted to check in with you about what we’re going to do tomorrow. If you have a moment, that is.” 

She was finding it hard to look at him. Images of the dream flashed through her mind as he managed to catch her eyes. Creators, if she had just kissed him while awake, this would be no where near as big of an issue. Knowing that her mind was screaming at her enough to cause her to dream of that sort of thing, while simultaneously NOT doing that sort of thing for real was making it very difficult to behave like a normal person.

“Of course,” he said, striding over to the desk and stowing his brush and paints.

Eres cleared her throat and attempted to sound calm. “I was just wondering about the eluvians. You seemed to at least know what they were, which is a step up on me. Could you… enlighten me a bit about what we’re getting into?”

“Yes. I have seen memories of the eluvians in the fade, but I had not thought to actually have a chance to go through one so long after they were abandoned.”

“Right. Yeah, I don’t… so it really is a mirror? That, what, swings open into a passage?” She asked somewhat lamely. There was a gaping hole in her knowledge and it rankled. 

“Not quite. Think of it more as something similar to a fade rift. The surface of the mirror turns into something immaterial, a gateway of energy.”

“Ah,” she said, as though that explained it all.

They stood in semi-uncomfortable silence for a few moments, and Eres found herself unable to look away from the smudge of paint on his chin. 

He became aware of her gaze and moved a hand up to the smudge. “Oh, it seems I was a bit… distracted as I painted.” He chuckled and utterly ineffectually tried to rub away the smudge. His hands were also covered in paint, so he only succeeded in adding to the problem.

She laughed and reached out. “No, let me, you’re making it terrible.”

As her fingers touched his face, he grew very still, his smile slowly turning up at one corner. She became highly aware that this was the first time she had ever actually had skin-on-skin contact with him. Well, at least since their first meeting when he had nearly yanked her arm out of its socket. This was significantly more pleasant than dislocating a shoulder, even if it was such a small gesture. His skin was very, very warm, and there was an odd sort of energy buzzing over her finger tips as she rubbed the paint away. 

“Deshanna used to paint. In between her lessons. I’d come back from training with Huntsmaster Ando and find her just like you - focused and covered from head to toe with paint. I’d help her get the impossibly located spots, but I’d always leave one or two that she wouldn’t find until she got hold of a mirror or went to bathe. Shit, she used get so mad. I could hear her shouting from all the way in the woods if she found paint on her nose when she went to have a bath.” She was rambling, but thoughts of her clan were coming at her with alarming insistence, and she… wanted Solas to understand where she was from, and what he was going to see. She was going home, and he would be a part of it. It was an oddly exhilarating thought. And terrifying. It made the Inquisition seem more real and less like a bad dream that had sprung up around her.

Solas smiled down at her. “Am I to meet these people when we arrive at your clan?”

“I suppose you will. It’s strange to think of you there. Deshanna is actually the keeper now. You can talk shop with her - she’s a talented mage. Probably could give you a run for your money.”

Solas snorted, raising his eyebrows. “And Master Ando?”

“Ando? Hmmm… best hope you don’t meet him.”

“He trained you?”

“He tried.” 

“Oh?”

“I am… un-gifted when it comes to ‘traditional Elven hunting techniques’, if you hadn’t caught on before now. Actually, you can see for yourself in about an hour. Sera’s informed me that she won’t be joining us unless I out-shoot her at the archery competition.”

"Interesting. Perhaps I will happen by."

Suddenly, Eres realized that her hand was still on his face, though she had long ago gotten the paint off. Her initial instinct was to jerk her hand away, but instead, she ran her thumb slowly over his cheek and smirked to herself. _Take that, dream._ She would not be cowed into embarrassment by her own mind.

“Careful, Lethallan.” He said in a low voice and caught her hand. Instead of shoving it away as she expected, he drew her fingers up to his mouth and kissed the tip of her index finger so softly and quickly, that she was unsure it had even happened. 

“Lest you tempt me into your dreams once again.”

Her mouth dropped open. 

“Inquisitor! There you are! I’ve been looking for you everywhere” Josephine said as she strolled into the room, eyes on her portable writing tablet. “Before you leave I wanted your approval to hire tailors for the…” her voice trailed off as she looked up and took in the sight of Solas holding Eres’ hand. Solas smirked down at Eres, completely unfazed by the interruption. Eres attempted to mirror his seemingly unaffected attitude, but the effect was somewhat diminished by the heat she felt rising in her cheeks. Damn him. She withdrew her hand in her best nonchalant manner and primly turned to Josephine.

“Oh do pardon my interruption, I should, um… there are things I should go do,” Josephine said hastily, backing towards the door and smiling like she had just found a gold piece on the ground. 

Eres’ voice cracked as she said, “Josephine! Yes. Yeah. I’ll come with you. I’m sure there’s a million things to take care of before I leave.”

She strode out of the rotunda without looking back, but could sense Solas smirking at her the whole way until the door slammed shut. As soon as the latch clicked, Josephine turned to her, eyebrows raised. “Well… developing a taste for apostates, hmm?”

“Josie! It was honestly nothing.” Lie. “He just had some paint on his face that he couldn’t get off.” Semi-lie. “I only went to ask him about the eluvians and what I should be expecting tomorrow.” Lie. 

Josephine giggled. _Giggled._ This was ridiculous.

“Do not worry, Inquisitor, your secret is safe with me… and Leliana. Obviously she will love to hear about this.”

Eres sighed. “There’s no stopping you is there?”

“Not in the slightest. Besides, Leliana likely will find out anyway, and I do think that I’ll be able give the story a certain sort of flair that might be otherwise lacking from another source.”

“Thanks, Josie.”

“Any time, Inquisitor.”

There were no secrets in Skyhold, apparently. People were starting to see right through her far too much of the time here. Perhaps it was because she was perpetually in the spotlight, or perhaps it was because she was starting to think of them as family. Either way, it was annoying as hell sometimes. She was comfortable playing the outsider. It was safer, probably for everyone, but the possibility of maintaining that type of relationship with her inner circle was slipping further and further from her grasp.

She spent an hour or so in an extra war table meeting, taking care of as much last minute business as possible. As the archery competition loomed, Eres dragged her feet out to the training grounds. 

_Lest you tempt me into your dreams once again._

Solas’ words bounced around her mind the entire time at the war table. She must've had a faraway look about half the meeting, judging by the amount of time Josephine had spent smugly grinning at her. 

The dream. The dream that sent shockwaves through her every time she thought about it - _that_ dream had been real. She wanted to run to Solas, grab him once again and see where that took them. Fucking archery. She would have to talk to him after the contest. In the dream, he had pulled away. Told her that it wasn’t right. Today he was warm and confidently suave once again. She wasn’t sure what to make of it. There was no way in hell her mind would be clear when they went through the eluvian tomorrow if she didn’t start getting some answers or explanations from him. Her clan couldn’t afford for her to be distracted by anything if they were truly in trouble. 

She walked through the knot of people and up to where Scout Harding and Sera were standing, both leaning on bows. Right. Shit. “I’ll need to borrow one of those, if you still mean to make me do this, Sera.”

“‘Course I do. No bullseye, no mirror for me.” Sera grinned and drew an arrow out of the quiver leaning up against the side of the tavern.

“Hey Inquisitor! I didn’t expect you to join in with this after what I saw of your shooting in the Hinterlands. Given any thought to increasing my hazard pay? Might need it for this,” Harding good-naturedly joked up at Eres.

"Nice try, Harding. Best take up the wage increase with Ambassador Montilyet. As for this, well, I suppose you could try ducking when it's my turn to shoot."

Harding sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that. Send me out in the field any day, but I’ll take a pass on trying to haggle with an Antivan. But you've gotten a bit of practice in with a bow... Right?"

Eres glanced around. “Are all of these people here to just watch?”

“They’re all scared of competing with the Herald of Andraste. Good thing you’re about to have your arse handed to you. Don’t want the little people scared,” Sera said as she notched the arrow. “Right, I’m starting this.”

The three women stepped up to the shooting range, Sera squaring up to the target. She let an arrow fly and it hit the bullseye. The crowd cheered. 

“Piss, it’s still off center.”

Eres glanced sideways at her, incredulous. Over Sera’ shoulder she caught sight of Solas, leaning casually against the wall. Well, she supposed, she had invited him. It didn’t stop her face from glowing red under his gaze, though. His mouth quirked up when he saw her looking over. 

Harding went next, hitting the target just off from the bullseye to a polite smattering of applause. She shrugged, and Eres took a minute to really appreciate just how much of a good sport Harding was about everything. Unfortunately, when she was done appreciating, it was her turn to step up to the range. 

Sera was holding out her bow, a huge smile plastered on her face. Eres sighed and took it, momentarily expecting to hear Ando bark out “Da’len! Focus!” from over her shoulder. She grabbed an arrow out of the communal quiver and notched it, mentally repeating the steps that had been drilled into her for years.

_Feet shoulder width apart. Straight at the target._

_Knock the arrow down at the ground._

_Draw back, three fingers. Elbow parallel to the ground._

_Hold against cheek, breathe out. Focus. Release._

The arrow left her bow, and, to her utter astonishment, thwacked in the dead center of the bullseye. 

“What?!” Sera yelped, running to the target to get a closer look.

“What?!” Eres yelped, following suit. 

“Nice, Inquisitor,” said Harding.

The crowd cheered wildly. 

How the hell had that…? She looked over at Solas, mouth still hanging open. He gave her a polite clap and a nod, a small smile on his face. 

“Fuck! FUCK! I don’t want to go through the fucking mirror!” Sera screeched, stamping her foot on the ground.

Solas leaned up and headed for the castle once again. 

Eres turned back to Sera and the archery target she had just kicked over.

“Ohh, and there you were all ‘I’m so shit at archery, couldn’t hit the arse end of dreadnought’ and now this?” She gestured wildly at the target.

Eres shook her head and said, “But I really am shit! I can’t even begin to explain how that happened.”

She put a hand on Sera’s shoulder, feeling guilty for somehow pulling off that shot. 

“Listen, Sera, if you really don’t want to risk it, I won’t hold it against you. If you come, come because of me, not because of a bet.”

Sera threw a scathing look at Eres. “Fair’s fair, Quiz-quiz. I made a bet, and you beat me. I’m not about to go backing out of deals.”

The competition spectacle slowly dissolved as people went back to their work or drink. Eres left Sera mumbling “Andraste’s tits, what have I gotten myself into?” And headed back to castle. Before she could enter the rotunda to have a _talk_ with Solas, Cullen caught up to her with news about a war brewing in Kirkwall. 

She found herself in the war room, discussing the potential political repercussions and to what extent the Inquisition should act until the wee hours of the morning. 

When they finally disbanded their discussion, she barely had enough energy to make it up the stairs. Her talk with Solas would have to wait. She thought back on the archery competition as she dragged herself into bed and the rakish look Solas had given her when she had nailed the bullseye. Her head hit the pillow and her eyes closed, but she stayed conscious just long enough to realize that her victory had very little to do with her own bow skills and everything to do with the elven mage that had been leaning against the wall and looking far, far too pleased with himself. 


	9. Enansal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The journey to Wycome begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvhen translations at the end.

Solas began pulling on his armor, such as it was. He was beyond ready to leave Skyhold, and rushed through the process of packing in the hopes of speeding along their departure. He headed out to the great hall once he was geared up and found Merrill and Varric chatting over a small breakfast. Solas sat on the bench chair beside Varric, gathering together some fruits and griddle bread on a plate and shoving a few extra apples in his pack.

“And you’ll stay out of the back alleys? When you go back to Kirkwall?”

“Nothing ever happens. I’m perfectly safe, Varric.”

“That nothing has been costing me a fortune for years, Daisy.” 

Merrill laughed, swatting Varric on the shoulder. She turned her large green eyes on Solas. “Andaran atish’an, Ha'hren. We haven’t had a chance to speak much. Are you excited for today?”

Solas inclined his head, “Da’len. Yes, I am very interested to see what today holds.” Solas took a large bite of food to discourage her from speaking to him further. It did not work.

“I thought I was going to faint the first time I went through the eluvian. I was so excited! Briala was in a hurry, though, so she rushed me along before I could properly look at everything.” Merrill sighed. “I suppose today will be like that as well.”

Solas nodded, trying to stretch out the amount of time he chewed so he would not be obliged to actually talk. 

“So have you met them?”

Apparently this Merrill was determined to speak to him. He swallowed and asked, “Who?”

She giggled. “The Inquisitor’s clan, obviously. Are you with them? Did she bring you to the Inquisition? You don’t have vallaslin, but you seem to know more of elvhen language than the people in the alienage where I live.”

Solas fought down the urge to glower. He would have to quell that particular response to the Dalish often in the coming weeks, if he was to keep from offending Eres’ clan. Felassan had told him much about the Dalish when he had posed as one of them. His reports had not been glowing. Solas had been willing to believe that Felassan had been exaggerating his accounts of their narrow-minded, lazy attitude towards their heritage, if for no other reason than Felassan was prone to hyperbole. That was before Solas had met them for himself. He had thought to join the Dalish, and hide amongst them as Felassan had when he awoke. The first clan he had met had accepted him with sneers; convinced he was a city runaway that could not possibly know anything of the history of Elvhenan. That alone had been enough to make his blood boil. When they had insisted he be branded with vallaslin if he was to join them, Solas had tried to explain what the marks actually represented and the ensuing “discussion” did not turn out satisfactorily for anyone involved. Though undoubtably, it had been worse for the man who’s arm he had broken. Solas did not do well with the Dalish. 

Merrill looked expectantly at him, a beacon of innocent interest. He sighed and replied, “No, I have never had the pleasure of meeting them before. I am not Dalish, nor was I raised in an alienage.”

“Oh?” she asked, eyes wide. “Were you in a circle then? You’re a mage, unless that’s just a walking staff.”

Solas took another large bite of the griddle bread and shook his head.

“Chuckles here is something of an explorer. Wandered out on his own, from what he’s told us. The perfect picture of a wild apostate,” Varric explained. Solas shrugged, wanting very much to have this conversation end.

Sera flung open the doors and shuffled in, glaring at Merrill as the Dalish mage turned to give her a greeting. “No,” said Sera.

“No?” asked Merrill.

“No.”

“Oh.”

“Just a crazy guess, but I’m betting Buttercup isn’t exactly fired up for your little excursion.”

Sera snorted as she plopped down on the bench next to Merrill, who stared at her, shocked.

“But this is our heritage! How can you not be-”

“Shut it.”

“But-“

“I said, shut it!”

Merrill looked perplexed, but turned back to Varric and Solas and hastily took a few bites of a pear. 

Eres stumbled out of her tower then, looking exhausted. She walked over to their little group and picked up an apple without sitting down and took a huge bite. “Varric, Merrill,” she said, after she had chewed and swallowed. “You should know... Starkhaven invaded Kirkwall. We received word last night.”

“What!?” the dwarf asked, alarmed. Merrill gasped, putting a hand to her mouth.

“Yeah, apparently Prince Vael means to attack anyone that has ever so much as spoken to the mage that blew up the chantry.”

“That son of a bitch! He threatened this that night. Said he’d attack and I didn’t take him seriously.” Varric growled, running his hands over his hair repeatedly in agitation. 

“How could Sebastian do this? I know he was upset… but to attack Kirkwall?"

Eres looked sharply at Merrill. “You know him?”

Varric sighed. “Yeah, he was part of our little motley crew. Hawke helped him get revenge and he became… a friend.” Varric looked sick as he said the last word. 

“We were both there when Hawke wouldn’t kill Anders,” Merrill added quietly. “Sebastian used to be so nice. Anders, well, we didn’t exactly see eye to eye, but he was a friend too. Hawke couldn’t have killed him. We were family. We were all family.”

Eres toyed with the apple in her hands, frowning at it. “I wish Hawke hadn’t left already. Could’ve really used her advice last night.”

Varric glanced up. “What is the Inquisition going to do?”

Eres looked as though she had been preparing for the question and sighed. “Varric… You know we have our hands full right now… there’s only so much we can do. Cullen knew more about the situation than anyone at our meeting last night, so I deferred to his judgement. We’re sending troops to help Kirkwall fight off Starkhaven. I don’t know if it’ll be enough, but I have little to no respect for someone who would throw an entire city into chaos to hunt for one man. ”

Varric rumbled his approval. 

Eres continued, “If you need to go to Kirkwall… I know it’s your home. I’m about to go fight for my home and it’d be hypocritical of me to ask you to stay.”

He frowned, picking apart a piece of bread. After a bit, he replied, “I think I can help more here. Evil, darkspawn, Tevinter magisters that I didn’t kill properly the first time take priority over a pouting prince.”

Eres nodded. “That’s my thinking as well. This is going to put a hitch in our current plans too. Merrill, do you know of any eluvians closer to Wycome than yours?”

Solas knew of at least four, though he did not think that claiming he had learned of them in the fade would be believable enough to go unquestioned. 

Merrill frowned and said, “No. I only knew about the one here because Briala showed me some of the paths in Orlais. I suppose we could search for another exit, but we might pop up in Rivain or Nevarra if we got it wrong. Although I hear Rivain’s lovely.”

Eres sighed. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Looks like we’re going to have to try to slip through a war. Great.”

The group around the table sat quietly absorbing that information for a moment.

“Well, there’s no point in delaying it, are you all ready to head out? Where’s Cole?”

“Hello,” said a soft voice to Solas’ right.

Everyone’s heads whipped around.

Sera shivered and said “Euggh, Creepy” when she spotted the spirit boy sitting on the table cross-legged next to her, playing with a bunch of grapes.

Varric put a hand to his chest. “Kid, we’ve gotta work on your people skills.”

Solas glanced at Eres and saw the muscles of her neck working as she tried not to yelp in surprise. He hid his smile at the group’s discomfort. He was starting to enjoy having this spirit around.

She purposefully relaxed the tension in her shoulders before hissing out through clenched teeth, “Right. Let’s go then. If I meet the guard captain, I’ll… I’ll say ‘hey’ for you, Varric.”

They set off as the sun began crawling over the peaks of the snow-clad Frostbacks, speaking little to one another. The first part of the journey was treacherous, and they spent the morning slipping and stumbling down mountainsides, trudging through grooves worn in the knee-deep snow by Leliana’s spies and Cullen’s soldiers. 

Solas’ eyes stayed mostly on Eres, at the front walking next to Merrill, exchanging occasional words in hushed whispers. His position near the back of the party had its advantages in that regard - the view was unparalleled. The lack of conversation gave him time to ponder through the day before. He had been riding out waves of enthusiasm after discovering that the key to the eluvians was about to be his with minimal effort and it had made him too bold in his attraction to the Inquisitor. Still, he couldn’t quite bring himself to regret it. Not when he pictured the absolutely magnificent bewilderment that had spread over her face when he had let it be known that he was in her dreams. It was worth it for that memory alone. That and the feel of her hand on his cheek. Those were things he would like to remember for a very, very long time indeed.

Surely there wouldn’t be any harm in a few small indulgences with her. Brief stolen moments. That was all they would be.

For now, earning the stutter steps in her normally blithely confident demeanor was going to be a treat. He had so few spots of happiness since waking from uthenara; he would allow himself this. 

Finally, in the late afternoon, the group walked out onto level ground. Merrill lead them towards the Emprise du Lion, and Solas was alarmed to note that the closer they came to the Emprise, the more red lyrium polluted the landscape. He hoped that Eres was taking note of it as well. It would not do to have this much red lyrium that close to the Inquisition’s stronghold. He also noted that they had passed two eluvians that would’ve taken them directly to the _Ena’hanalsan_ , but again found himself in the position of being unable to better direct them without revealing too much. He sighed as he realized how far out of the way Merrill was leading them, earning him a look from Sera, who was stomping along directly in front of him.

In the evening, they came upon a small destroyed town, depressingly near deserted. They slipped through without stopping, Eres drawing her hood up to hide her face in case any of the people had heard of the fabled Herald of Andraste. Cole showed signs of wanting to stop to help the townsfolk, but Eres gave him a sharp look and snapped at him to get back with the group. Solas was surprised. The way she snarled at the spirit was a significant departure from how she interacted with everyone else in the Inquisition. She was being downright glacial with the boy, comparatively. Odd. He would have expected her to be fascinated by Cole. She had shown interest in spirits when they had spoken of them back in Haven. Never had she hinted at the sort of discomfort and… anger? Fear? she was now displaying. 

Shortly past the town, they came upon a small glade of pine trees, grouped closely together. Solas immediately recognized it, but was displeased to note that it was one of the outlier eluvians that would not directly lead to the _Ena’hanalsan_. He had barely remembered its existence until he had gotten a look at the landscape they were now nearing.

“It’s just through there,” said Merrill, pointing at the grove.

They went onwards, and found a partially collapsed set of stone steps leading down under the earth. Sera’s face went pale.

“What, we’re supposed to go down there?” She asked, shivering in the cold. “The frigging thing looks like it’s about to collapse.”

Eres started forward without saying anything, determinedly ignoring Sera’s protests. She disappeared down the steps and they all followed, Sera grumbling all the way. They emerged into a stone alcove. “Cave” might’ve been a more apt description, now that its former glory had crumbled away with time. There were remnants of the beautiful mosaics that had once covered the place and Solas casually walked over to a brazier on the wall, lighting it with veil fire so that they could better see the small room. Front and center stood an eluvian. Not as intricate as some of the finer eluvians. He reached out with his senses and felt the aura pushing off of the mirror in waves. So they truly were active once again. He could not help the small swell of relief he felt at seeing this piece of Elvhenan still standing strong after so long. The relief was quickly followed back to back by a sadness that hit him right in his core. This was what was left. This was it. Crumbling ruins and a damaged infrastructure of portals. This was all there was. This, and him. 

“So how is this going to work?” Eres asked, staring at the mirror.

“Well, I just go up to it and say the passphrase.” 

“Which is?”

Merrill looked around at her four traveling companions. “Hmm, it’s a bit silly.”

Solas shifted impatiently. 

“It’s _Fen’Harel enansal_.”

The room exploded with blinding blue light, silhouetting Merrill standing in front of the mirror for a moment, before fading to show the shimmering portal where there had been glass seconds before. 

Solas’ knees hit the tiled ground. 

His title spoken as something other than a curse by a someone, as a blessing, drove the air from his lungs with a physical blast of force. It had not happened in so long and he had been so unprepared for it and he was so _close_ to it that it had literally floored him. Even as he hit the ground, he felt stirrings of a power that had once been his wrapping around him. It slipped into his soul, twisting and rattling through his arteries and spilled out into his entire being. It was not all of his power, not nearly, but it was a part of it, coming home like a bird returning from a very, very long winter. 

He didn’t know what to make of it. Had it been the eluvian reacting to his presence? Releasing some of the power he had poured into them those many years ago? Or had it really been the minor prayer, spoken by this distant relative of the elvhen? Words had power. Belief had power. Far more than the people of this time realized. Had that been the reason he had felt the slow trickle of his magic returning over the past year? Felassan had spread the stories of the Dread Wolf's exploits far, if sparsely. Millennia of built up intent had been part of the plan, but it had been fouled up by the twisting of the tale of his role in the fall of Arlathan. Had Briala’s little passcode, that one little phrase, repeated a hundred times over been the factor that tipped the scales and allowed him to pull himself out of uthenara? Connections rapidly flashed back and forth through his mind, tracing the timelines of everything that had happened since he had awakened. Ideas flashing across his eyelids like bolts of lightning, as his body calmed from the dizzying, dazzling explosion of life that crashed into him. 

Hands clutched at his face, drawing it up so that he could see two large bright eyes staring at him in alarm, then a face, mouthing wordlessly at him. 

Slowly, the ringing in his ears faded as his body adjusted to accommodate a part of the energy it hadn’t housed in far, far too many years, and he could hear her saying, “Solas! Solas! Are you ok?! Solas look at me!” 

He sat back on his heels, shaking his head to clear it. Eres plopped down in front of him, exhaling a loud gust of relief and leaning her elbows on her knees. 

“I-I will be fine,” he mumbled. 

“The frig was that?” Sera choked out in an oddly high pitched voice. 

Merrill flitted around the two seated on the ground, rapidly spilling worries out from between hands clenched over her mouth. Cole came and sat next to Solas, putting a hand hesitantly on his shoulder. Eres’ eyes narrowed at the spirit, but she said nothing to stop him. 

“We stop here to camp. It’s late, and I’m not taking Solas through like this tonight,” Eres said in a tone that brokered no argument. 

“I am fine,” he repeated, with a little more force, but she was already pulling out a bed roll and some provisions. 

The others followed suit, except for Cole, who stayed where he was next to Solas. 

“I’m not allowed to help you now?” the spirit asked quietly enough for no one to hear except for Solas. 

“No, Cole, not tonight.”

As the torrent of energy settled fully, Solas felt more awake than he had in years. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand here we enter deep, deep into headcannon land.
> 
> If you want to know where I'm going with this whole "belief = power" thing, check out this [meta post](http://maizzycakes.tumblr.com/post/113648931557/lyrium-theory) I typed up on tumblr
> 
> Someone also made a glorious [lore-filled reply](http://maizzycakes.tumblr.com/post/113859370822/lyrium-theory) which you can read with my reaction to it as well.
> 
> I will be trying to loop it into the story more too, but I feel like I owe you all some explanations of the logic behind it. Therefore, meta post.
> 
> POST-TRESPASSER NOTE: Not ret-conning the Lyrium theory stuff for now. I will once I have time! The whole "there's power in people praying to you thing" wasn't actually disproved, so this will probably be one of the last things to change. It's just going to be a pain since the next chapter is a direct reaction to this one e__e
> 
> Also, wuh-oh, Eres is not a fan of Cole.
> 
> Andaran atish’an = a greeting  
> Hahren = title for a respected elder  
> da’len = little child  
> Fen’Harel enansal = The Dread Wolf’s Blessing (which is what Briala made the passcode to all of the eluvians in Thedas at the end of the Masked Empire)
> 
> My own mashed up elvish:  
> Ena’hanalsan=  
> Ena (eh-NAH): appear; emerge. + Hanal'ghilan (HAH-nal GHEE-lan): "the pathfinder" + San (sahn): place  
> = The Place of Emerging Paths = The Crossroads!


	10. Emerging Paths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eres talks to Solas about what happened when they unlocked the eluvian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo... there are a ton of milestones with this chapter for me! I broke 30k words, hit chapter 10 AND hit 1000 views yesterday! Thank you everyone that's taken the time to peek at my story! It means a lot.

“A word,” Eres said, brushing past Solas after everyone had unloaded their bedrolls. She walked up the stone steps to the moon-dappled glade of trees. He followed behind in silence. She did not go far, only putting enough distance between them and their companions to be afforded some small measure of privacy. She stopped by an empty torch stand, one of several surrounding the entrance to the eluvian’s resting place and jutted her chin at it, indicating that he should light it. He did, and a large blaze of veil fire roared to life, brighter than she had ever seen him conjure up before. He waved his hand again, and the fire settled down to its usual dancing blue flickers.

“My apologies, it seems I am still… unbalanced after unlocking the eluvian,” Solas said, eyebrows drawing together in a frown.

Eres leaned back against the trunk of a gnarled, barren tree and gazed at him. She was in no mood for word games tonight and spent a moment trying to figure out how to word her questions to get actual answers from him. A direct approach was worth a shot, even if it was liable only to merit her a handful of vague non-answers as a reply. 

“So… what happened? Just now?”

He looked her in the eyes briefly, before staring back at the blue flames. “I am not entirely sure. I lost consciousness momentarily.”

And there it was - his first dodge of the evening. And there it went - all of the casualness she had been trying to muster up slipped away from her grasp.

Already he was dancing away from her questions; not a chance that would stand. Not about this.  

“See, that’s not good enough! You… you collapsed. You…” her hands were shaking, and she clenched them harder under her arms. She took a deep breath. “You know I’m worthless when it comes to magic. I can’t fight against something like that… If you had...” 

Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes as impotent rage strangled her ability to speak. Rage at being useless. Rage at being put in a situation with forces so far outside of her control. Rage at being expected to somehow conquer it, but most of all, rage at herself. Her inability to protect those that she cared for. Saving the world was a nebulous idea, one that kept her up at night, admittedly, but saving the people of the Inquisition and her clan was something that her mind could wrap around. Watching one of them… him… fall like that had triggered a mental reckoning a long time in the making.

She replayed the scene in her head again, remembering how the wave of blue light had washed out from the mirror. How it had crashed into him, his body going rigid and how he had crumpled to all fours, eyes closed, sweat beading on his head as it hung towards the ground. She hadn’t known what to do. She had sprinted the short distance to him, screamed at him to wake up, tried to shake him awake. She had felt the bolts of energy dancing over him, but there had been nothing she could do. 

The tears came then. She tried to hide them as best she could, but there would be no stopping them. She had not truly given into tears like this since the night she had run away from her clan. Even now, it was more like a dam buckling under too much pressure - nothing like the tidal wave she had experienced that night, though recognizing that difference did nothing to lessen the current flood.

A pair of warm arms wrapped around her, pulling her in close and a hand moved up to her hair, tucking her head into the crook of a neck. Her tears spilled hot and angry onto rough wool and she let herself be held tightly as her body shook loose all of the fears, all of the failures and all of the worries she had been holding close since she had left for the conclave. 

“Stop… stop this,” Solas said softly, stroking her hair. “You are not worthless. I am all right. I am well. There was no failure on your part here.”

Her head snapped up, nearly clipping his chin. “No failure here _today_ , but what about tomorrow? What about the next? What happens when there's some magic I can't do anything to stop? I watched you _die_ for me once already, Solas… I…” She trailed off, throat clenching as she remembered the strange future she had stumbled into with Dorian. She had spoken of it to no one - not even Dorian. He didn't know any of them then, and had no trouble thinking of the whole thing as a grand adventure. 

Solas looked down at her in confusion. “Perhaps… you should tell me of this. Was this something that happened in a dream?” He asked slowly.

“I-I… it was…” She sighed, trying to order her thoughts. He waited patiently, arms still around her. She could count each freckle on his cheeks. She took a few more deep breaths to get herself back under control.

“It was when I was sent through time at Redcliffe. You were there. You and Bull and Leliana were in the dungeons. Tortured and infected with red lyrium.”

She watched for his reaction, and saw his eyes widen infinitesimally. 

“You… You helped us, helped me and Dorian find our way out. You held off a horde of demons for us to get away. I couldn’t help - I had to stay close to the portal, but then… Bull fell, and you tried to stop them, but…” She trailed off, not wanting to speak the words again. Not wanting to remember Leliana’s lone assault on the wall of demons. Not wanting to remember the helplessness she had felt as she watched them die, one by one. 

His hand moved to the back of her head once more, and she leaned up against him, burying her face in his rough-spun vest. His fingers traced haltingly through her hair. 

“I did not know… at the time, I’m sorry…. I was so interested in learning about the time magic, that I had not considered… It was thoughtless of me to question you so thoroughly about the matter,” he said quietly. 

She shook her head against his chest. “It’s ok. You didn’t know. How could you? I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I still don’t, really. It’s not something I even want to think about.” She brought a hand up and rubbed at her nose, suddenly becoming very aware of the wet spot she had left on Solas’ shirt. “Not that…” She scrambled for words. “Not that this wasn’t something I needed, or that I don’t appreciate. I just… I’m not exactly used to talking through things. It’s never been my strong suit.”

He smiled down at her and said, “Nor is it mine. I won’t bring it up again if it troubles you.”

They stood in silence for what felt like hours, his fingers still stroking through her hair as she calmed. 

Once the storm of emotions had stilled, she was unsure of what to say. The steady, warm heat under her cheek and the soft smell of woodsmoke, sweat and wool had done wonders to soothe her, but she was becoming very aware that this was not just anyone that held her. This was Solas. The man who had always kept such a careful distance from her. Solas had just listened to a downright torrent of her personal failings, and he was still standing here with her. That was… surprising. She pulled her head back, slowly this time, and her stomach fluttered as their eyes locked. 

“What did you mean yesterday?”

“I said many things yesterday. To which are you referring?”

“When you said, ‘ _lest you tempt me into your dreams once again_ ’?” She asked slowly, never breaking the eye contact and carefully enunciating each word as he had then.

He chuckled and stepped back. Eres ruefully let her arms fall to her side. 

“I am… gifted in the ways of dreams, as I believe I have mentioned before.”

She smiled despite herself. “Yeah, I think that may have come up once or twice. But I thought mages were just aware - still stuck in their _own_ dreams.”

He chuckled again, but then said, “I apologize, the kiss was impulsive and ill-considered. I should not have encouraged it.”

She cocked a hip, incredulous. “You say that, but you’re the one that started with tongue.”

His eyes widened in innocence, even as a marvelously huge grin spread spread over his face. “I did no such thing!”

“Oh, does it not count if it’s only Fade-tongue?”

Solas’ smile dimmed and a frown creased his forehead. “It has been a long time, and things have always been easier for me in the Fade. I am not certain this is the best idea. It could lead to trouble.”

This was the first time the wall he put up between them contained any semblance of a door; he was unsure, actually willing to entertain the idea of being with her. Eres seized on it. She closed the distance between them once again, sliding her arms around his waist. He tentatively raised a hand to her cheek, rubbing a thumb along it cautiously and placed his other on the small of her back.

She looked up at him and quietly said, “I’m willing to take that chance, if you are.”

She was all too aware that this could be it. If he turned her down now, it would never again be an option up for discussion. 

“I… may be. Yes. If I could take a little time to think. There are… considerations,” he said haltingly.

Her heart swelled. “Take all the time you need.”

“Thank you. I am not often thrown by things that happen in dreams.”

She beamed up at him and said, “I’m reasonably certain we’re awake now. If you wanted to, uh, be thrown by something not in a dream.”

He tilted his head back and laughed. “Considerations, Eres, considerations.” He looked back down at her, eyes dancing and leaned forward so that his mouth was right next to her ear.  “But I promise you this, _Lethallan_ ,” he all but growled, putting an indecent amount of emphasis on the word, “If I do work through those considerations… the wait will be more than worth your time.” He lightly trailed his fingers up her spine, before turning and walking at a measured pace back into the eluvian chamber.

Eres stood frozen for a few seconds, then shook her head, smiling to herself, and followed him back in. She had no doubt whatsoever that he would be able to make good on such a declaration. 

The next morning Eres awoke to see that everyone except Sera was already up and moving. Apparently her little meltdown the night before had been more draining than she had realized. She clambered out of her bedroll, rolling it up while her mind dazedly tried to free itself of the vestiges of sleep. The smell of frying tomatoes and eggs filled the chamber and her stomach grumbled its approval of the intoxicating scent. 

“Good morning!” Merrill said brightly when she saw Eres awake. 

Eres grunted, not yet ready to try to make words happen. 

Solas handed her a plate of food after she had finished with the bedroll and slumped against it, using it as a backrest. She grunted again in thanks, and he raised his eyebrows at her, the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Sleep well?”

She looked up at him as she shoved a forkful of eggs into her mouth and jerked her head noncommittally.

Once she had some food in her belly, she started to feel more like a living person and shrugged into her armor. She arranged the scabbards of her daggers on her back before going to examine the surface of the eluvian. It still glowed faintly purple from when Merrill had unlocked it the night before. Eres reached out a hand to touch the surface and the mirror rippled like particularly dense water. 

“Weird.” She glanced back and saw Solas watching her. “Are you going to be all right walking through here after what happened yesterday?”

“Good morning to you too,” he said wryly. “Yes, I shall be fine. I am fairly certain the initial release of power is what caused my… discomfort.”

“Good to know.”

She walked over to where Sera snored and lightly shook her. Sera popped straight up with a snort, looking around in confusion.

The group finished up with their packing and stood in front of the eluvian. 

“Well, I suppose I’ll go first, shan’t I?” said Merrill, fairly skipping towards the eluvian. She touched the surface of the mirror, but instead of smacking into cool glass she disappeared through, leaving a wake of blue and purple ripples behind. 

Eres looked around at her other companions, noting that Sera looked like she was about to bolt back out of the chamber. “I’ll go next,” she said, walking up to the mirror. Lead by example, being the theory. Hopefully if Sera saw that she didn’t explode or something she would be a little more confident in following suit. 

Not that Eres wasn’t herself entirely convinced that she was about to explode. The idea of walking through something made of pure magic did not seem to be the healthiest of life choices, but, she reasoned, luck favored the bold. So she squared her shoulders, notched her chin up and followed Merrill through the mirror. 

It felt like she had stepped into a snowdrift, but more fluid and strangely warm. There was a tight sense of pressure all around her and she was blinded by a bright light. It passed quickly, and she was left standing on a stone path covered in runes. She was not sure what she had been expecting from walking through an eluvian, but it hadn’t been this. The landscape was hazy and gray. Her eyes could not quite seem to focus on the things in the distance and the path under her feet glowed with a bright light as far off into the distance as her eyes could follow it.

Sera stumbled through the eluvian behind Eres. She promptly bent over and tossed her proverbial cookies. She wiped her mouth, straightened and grumbled “Fucking magic” under her breath. 

Solas stepped through next, looking around in interest, but then wrinkling his nose when he saw that he had stepped into the puddle of sick Sera had left on the ground. “Pleasant. Was that really necessary, Sera?”

“Hey, piss on you! I just walked through a frigging wall of magic. What else was I supposed to do?”

“Oh, I see, projectile vomiting is your idea of a tactical maneuver in the face of unknown danger, how silly of me to not spot your genius.”

“I’ll tactically maneuver my foot up your-“

“People! I am NOT going through this little tunnel of magic with you two at each others throats! Now SHUT UP.” Eres bellowed over her two comrades.

That was when the spirit stepped through, looking around at his surroundings with dead eyes, before turning to stare at Eres, unblinking.

“She feels the magic, but fears it. Her mind cringes, yet her blood sings; a song that was forgotten a long time ago.”

“That goes double for you, spirit. And no more poking around in my head,” Eres said, glaring at the corpse boy before her. Its glassy eyes did not leave hers at the rebuke, but it did tilt its head to one side in a gesture of confusion. Her skin crawled. She had yet to try and talk to it, past telling it off. She supposed it would have to happen sooner or later, but for now, she was choosing later. 

“But...I wasn't looking into your head?”

Everyone’s eyes darted from Cole to Sera, who dry heaved a few more times. 

“Though if I look past the light, yours does as well,” the spirit finished. 

The eyes all turned to her. She glanced at Solas, and found him frowning at her, unmistakeable interest written over his face. 

“Right. Let’s, uh, let’s move along. I want to get to Kirkwall by tonight.” 

She turned on her heel and stalked down the path, disconcerted as the stones burst into color under her feet with each step. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was a little... iffy about having a crying scene this early on, but everything I've headcannoned about my Lavellan has her pretty much functioning like a ticking time bomb. So I figured a wave of ancient magic almost killing Solas (from her POV) would be the straw that broke the camel's back, and really make her cut loose with the melodrama.


	11. Kirkwall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eres and Co. arrive in Kirkwall and go to find Guard Captain Aveline.

The group traveled through the in-between places, making very good time. In less than an hour they were nearing their destination. Solas had almost forgotten how much more convenient eluvians made travel. Almost. He _had_ actually forgotten what the place looked like in its nearly pristine state. The last time he had been here, the world in-between had been full of of elvhen life, lighting up the place with colour and light. Now, the landscape was hazy and indistinct; blurring on the edges of his vision whenever he turned his eyes. The little group of elves he walked with livened the areas directly around where they trod, but it was not nearly the same as when thousands of elves had walked these paths daily. It was disconcerting to have his memory so thoroughly conflict with reality. He supposed he should be used to it by now, but this place was left more or less perfectly intact, whereas the crumbling empire’s leftover buildings were obliterated. With those at least, he could distance himself from their harsh reminders of what was lost. Not so here.

They were nearing the _Ena’hanalsan_ , and he was not entirely sure he was ready to see it. Too many ghosts of memories lingered in that place. Seeing the rows and rows of eluvians darkened or broken would be like walking through a graveyard.

Eres was at the head of the party with Merrill once again, turning her head this way and that as she tried to see everything she could. He had half-dreaded the possibility that she would walk with him today, but he supposed that they both needed to work through some considerations after last night’s conversation. 

He had been expecting and prepared for her to wheedle an explanation out of him about what had happened when the eluvian was unlocked. He was, subsequently, caught completely off-guard when she effectively fell to pieces in front of him. The depth of her feeling about everything, and the fact that he had not been called upon to comfort someone like that in a very, very long time had made last night rather... charged. Holding her seemed to have been the right choice, though, as she told him of his own death in an alternate future. It was one of the stranger conversations he had ever had. What was particularly off-putting was that it had felt natural, normal to embrace her. That was a eventuality he would've laughed himself sick over if it had been presented to him as a possibility when they had first met. Likely, Eres would have done the same. Now, however? Things were changing. Had he really said he was open to the idea of a relationship with her?

“Whoa. Is that the Crossroads?” Eres asked, redoubling her efforts to rubberneck.

“Yes! Isn’t it fascinating?” Merril said, waving her hand around at the rows upon rows of mirrors. “My mirror is just over there.”

“So we really are just going to walk out into Kirkwall? Just like that?” Eres asked. “That was so… fast.”

How disorienting this must be for her to see what would have part of her everyday life had she been born during a different time.  

Solas stepped forward to answer. “Everything I’ve heard of the eluvians speaks of them as a fantastically convenient form of travel. I still am astounded we’ve had the privilege of using them.”

“Pfffft,” said Sera. 

Solas turned around to glare at her. “You really have no appreciation for this part of your heritage?”

“Pffffffft.”

Solas sighed. 

Merrill lead them off through the ‘crossroads’ a ways, but Solas drew up short as she angled towards an ornate mirror, wrapped in twisting metal. Something was wrong. This mirror should not have been possible. 

“This is your mirror?” 

“Oh yes, it’s pretty, isn’t it?” 

He shrugged, wary. He wanted to question her further, but he would have to phrase it carefully. 

Merrill reached out a hand and said, “ _Fen’Harel enansal_.” 

Another gust of power burst out at him, but this time he was prepared for it, and merely hunched his shoulders against the force, leaning a little more on his staff than he usually would. Eres looked at him over her shoulder, as Merrill unlocked it. How strange it was to have someone worry over him. That was another thing that had not happened in a long time.

Merrill glanced over her shoulder too. “Ehrm, Sera, if you’re going to vomit again, could you perhaps aim for the sink?”

“Look, don’t make it worse. If I think about it, I’m going to probably do it.”

“Right, right, sorry.”

One by one they went through the eluvian, Solas waiting to go last. Once everyone was through, he took a moment to examine the mirror. There was something familiar about it, but oddly dissonant, like a song played in a different key. Knowing he did not have long to look, he ran his eyes over everything and reached out with all his senses. The power surrounding it was more than it should have been, and did not match the carvings and detailing around the border. Odd indeed. He gave up trying to get more information from it for the time being, planning fully to go back and study it once their current mission was complete, and walked through. He stepped out into a what could politely described as a shack and immediately turned to look at the mirror once more. 

Merrill darted around her home, offering beverages, then bemoaning that she had none at hand. 

The mirror from this side had the same sense of familiar wrongness. 

“Merrill, might I ask where you procured an eluvian?”

She paused in her scattered hostess ramblings. “Oh, I made it. Well, sort of. I found a shard a long time ago in the Brecillian Forest. My friend… he went through an eluvian there and… and… well. He’s not been seen since.” She swallowed heavily. “I found the frame for the mirror on Sundermount and spent a long time trying to cleanse the shard of a taint before fitting it in with new glass. It never worked. Not until Briala came falling through it, anyway, like I said.”

Solas stood very still, horror flowing through his veins. She had found an eluvian in the brecillian forest? A blighted eluvian? And it was shattered? “Fenedhis,” he said quietly under his breath. 

Just then, the little house rocked on its foundations and a large BOOM echoed around the room. 

“Fenedhis!” Eres said loudly, unconsciously echoing his own thoughts. “That Starkhaven prince is using trebuchets? Asshole’s trying to destroy the city!”

“So many people, scared, hurting. We need to help them.”

Eres’ head whipped around to glare at Cole. “That is not why we’re here, spirit. Cullen’s forces will take care of it.”

Solas would have to talk to her about her treatment of Cole. If she continued like this she would end up pushing his nature in a direction that would lead to much harm in the long run. 

“But, they need help!”

Eres gritted her teeth. 

“Can’t save them all. Pieces move around the board, but what to sacrifice to make a victory? But you could save them both!” Cole said, looking at Eres with wide eyes.

“Stay out of my head!”

Merrill cleared her throat. “You should help. While you can, that is. You’re already here. It doesn’t have to take long.”

Eres’ jaw worked as she turned to look at Merrill and it was a long moment before she said, “Fine. Fine. We’ll see what can be done, but we’re gone by tonight.”

Merrill brightened. 

“Great! Well, I suppose the first step would be to find Aveline. She’s likely up at the barracks.”

“We should move fast. Let’s go.”

Merrill set down the cups she had been pulling out of cupboards and picked up her staff once more. Solas took one last glance at the eluvian before the group walked out of Merrill’s little house. Immediately outside the door was a squalid square that Solas took to be the alienage of the city. It was a dismal place, not at all helped by the smoke wreathed city surrounding it on all sides. The only part of it that gave it any remote sense of distinction was a large tree growing in the center of the square. Solas knew what the city elves used it to symbolize, and seeing the topmost branches catch aflame felt like a purposeful metaphor sent by the world as a reminder not to get sidetracked from his main objective.

The group dashed through the streets, turning through an endless maze of clay-colored stone as repeated tremors echoed through the city and fires started to spring up on all sides. Merrill tried to narrate the things they passed, still bound by her feelings of hospitality, but was having a difficult time of it. 

“That right there is- oh! No- it’s just gone a bit up in flames. And that over there is- ooo… that hole isn’t usually in the wall there. And this is the Hanged Man.”

She stopped abruptly when they rounded the corner of another tan building. Underneath a massive sign in the shape of a man strung up by his feet stood a cluster of humans garbed in the official armor of the city guard. In the center, a tall red-haired woman stood barking out orders, calmly refitting the straps on a gauntlet.

“Aveline!” Merrill cried, taking off again and running up to her.

The woman glanced around, pausing in her string of commands. “Merrill! I was wondering where you’d got off to. I went to the alienage when this started,” she said gesturing around.

“I wasn’t in Kirkwall. I went to go see Varric and Hawke at the Inquisition’s headquarters.”

Aveline’s eyebrows went up. “You saw Hawke?”

“Yes! She’s, erm, a bit busy, though.”

“And I suppose Varric is a bit busy as well,” Aveline said frowning around at the group standing behind Merrill.

“Yes, sort of, but he couldn’t have come with us anyway, even if he wasn’t helping the inquisition.”

“And how _did_ you manage to get past the army at our doorstep, Merrill?”

“It’s… not important. But look who I brought! This is the Inquisitor and some of her friends!”

Aveline’s eyes widened. She bowed low to Eres. “Herald of Andraste. It is an honor to meet you. Have you come to help?”

Eres shifted uncomfortably and answered, “We are, for the most part, passing through, but my team and I will lend what help we can today. We also will need a way out of the city. Have any ideas?”

“Hmmm. The way it stands, Starkhaven has its army divided into two - the larger part is stationed outside the main gate, but there is also a smaller platoon spread out around the Wounded Coast to cover the darktown exits. The horde at the main gate presents the bigger problem. That’s where the trebuchets are, and where they mean to take Kirkwall by brute force.”

“No naval support?” Eres asked.

“Not that we’re aware of. Starkhaven is an inland city, so it’s likely their resources for that were negligible.”

“Think when this is done you’d know a smuggler that could get us to Wycome by sea then?”

“Possi-“

The door to the tavern swung open and out stepped a woman wearing the most ridiculously over-flourished hat Solas had ever seen. 

“Did someone call for a smuggler?”

Aveline turned and glared at the woman. “You were waiting to be fed a line to come out?”

“Presentation is everything, big girl. So,” she said, turning to the group “Aaaand there’s no Hawke. Pity. I quite wanted to show her my new hat.” 

Solas thought he saw her shoulders sag ever so slightly. 

“Isabela!” Merrill cried, running forward to hug her. 

“Kitten! It’s been too long. How are tricks?”

“Fine, fine, well, sort of. Obviously the city’s burning down again, but fine besides that. I’m sorry about Hawke. She left just before we heard about the war. If she’d have known you were going to be here, I'm sure she would’ve come right back to Kirkwall.”

“But not if she’d just heard about the war?” Aveline asked archly.

Isabela turned fully to Eres, managing to smack Aveline with the enormous feather set jauntily in her hat. The guard captain sputtered, but Isabela had already started talking. “So, you need to be smuggled up to Wycome?”

Eres didn’t answer for a second longer than she should have and Solas was surprised to see her carefully studying the sign of the Hanged Man, determinedly avoiding Isabela’s eye contact. 

Isabela leered. “Waaaait. I know you! You were with that carta girl in Ostwick. That was a… fun night. Maker, what was it? Six years ago now?”

“Seven,” Eres corrected, still studying the sign, the corners of her mouth turning up slightly.

“Well, small Thedas.”

“Sure is.”

“But you do need to be smuggled, yes?”

Eres finally looked around at Isabela, flashing her a wicked smile that Solas found himself fervently wishing was instead directed at him. _  
_

“Sure do, but uh, I’m fresh out of carta girls this time around.”

Isabela laughed. “And apparently I’m a spoken for woman now. My how the times have changed. But it would be an honor, Inquisitor.”

The group migrated inside the tavern to figure out a plan. A cup of terrible ale was thrust into Solas’ hands as he listened to the abbreviated war council. He did not have anything to offer past what was already being suggested, so he contented himself with sipping at the mug of swill and trying to piece together what he knew of Eres’ past. He had thought that she had been with her clan up until the conclave, but severely doubted that she would have crossed paths with the Carta or a pirate if she had lived a complete wandering Dalish life. Interesting. Perhaps that accounted for why she was so different from all of the Dalish he had met previously - she had seen more of life. Granted, it sounded as though she had perhaps seen more of the seedier side of life, but that only made it all the more fascinating.

He looked around the table, as he swirled the cup of piss. Sera was laughing heartily, hanging onto the arm of one of Aveline’s guards. The guard looked terribly uncomfortable. Cole was also holding a tankard full of warm beer, but frowned down at it with an expression somewhere between interest and horror. Merrill was playing cards with Isabela and Eres was talking with Aveline, hands on her hips as they poured over a small map of the city’s layout. It was good to see that she was fitting into the role of the Inquisitor so well here. It bade well for their chances at defeating Corypheus if Eres was able to keep up with an old soldier like the guard captain. He wondered if tactical planning was something she had learned from the Carta girl. He also wondered what _else_ she might’ve learned from that Carta girl and Isabela before he firmly clamped down on that thought in his mind. Solas tossed back the rest of the horrible beer as punishment.

“Right, I think that will work,” Aveline said, tapping the map.

Eres nodded and gestured for everyone to gather around their table. 

The two women laid out their plan for the assembled group, then everyone dispersed to gather up their weapons and gear once more. Before they all reconvened, Solas slipped over next to where Eres was bent, re-lacing her boots.

“Carta and a pirate?” He asked, arching a brow.

Eres jumped, clearly not having paid attention to what was going on around her. She looked up at him, surprised, but slowly that wicked grin he had coveted earlier spread over her face once again.

“You know, dark history and all that. I’m sure you have your own stories on that account.”

“You have no idea.”

“Well,” she said, standing, “Perhaps you’ll have to give me one sometime.” She ran a hand up his arm, sending shivers through his skin as she brushed past him heading towards the exit of the tavern, smirking all the while. 

Solas chuckled softly to himself. Apparently now that they had both admitted their admiration for each other there was to be more of this sort of verbal sparring... and she had just beaten him. He couldn't let that stand. Not when she looked at him like _that._  Thinking on her smirk as she walked away made his blood pump a little faster through his veins. He could come to enjoy their small exchanges a very great deal. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline-wise, I’m thinking that Eres met Isabela when she ran away with the tome of Koslun.
> 
> My own mashed up elvish:  
> Ena’hanalsan=  
> Ena (eh-NAH): appear; emerge. +  
> Hanal'ghilan (HAH-nal GHEE-lan): "the pathfinder"  
> \+ San (sahn): place  
> = The Place of Emerging Paths = the crossroads


	12. Servitude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Inquisition strike team sets out to cause a little havoc and cripple Starkhaven's army.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had way, way too much fun writing this chapter. 
> 
> from the wiki:  
> Forms of address in the Free Marches:  
> Serah and Messere are common, gender-neutral forms of address within the Free Marches. Serah is used when addressing someone of equal or lesser status, while Messere is for a person of greater status.
> 
> (just a refresher - totes had to look up the difference between the two)

The plan was… not necessarily a simple one. Eres and Aveline had decided that they would use the natural disguises Eres’ group already possessed - namely, being elves. It was not quite midday when the group went back to the alienage to fully prepare for their mission. The spirit wandered off to stare at the big tree, reaching out its hands to touch the paintings around the massive base. Merrill walked door to door asking the people of the alienage if they could spare their old clothing, paying purses full of gold that Eres handed over for the rattiest, dirtiest outfits the elves had to offer. She and Merrill made sure to spread the coin around enough that nobody would be being jumped by another elf that night. At least not until some of the more irresponsible people had spent it all and went looking for more. They left the spirit in the square, retreating back to Merrill’s house to try to look as miserably downtrodden as the servants running errands around human military camps would undoubtably look. 

“Merrill, I think we’ll need some dirt as well,” Eres said as she rubbed away the dark makeup around her eyes that she had taken to wearing during her years spent away from the clan. 

Merrill brightly replied, “Oh! I have plenty of that!” She scurried off to find a plate to scoop some grime up to be rubbed on their skin.

Out of the corner of her eye, Eres saw Solas stripping off his tunic and couldn’t help but angle her body a bit to get more of a peek. He was standing so that he was facing the same way she was, and she was rewarded with a side view of the lightly defined planes of his waist and chest along with the corded muscle of his arms. He was not as intimidatingly chunky as a human warrior would be, but he was far, far beyond anything she had ever seen on an elven man before. There were more scars criss-crossing his skin than she would’ve expected from a man that wandered the wilderness alone full-time, but perhaps those scars had come from wherever he had learned combat magic so well. 

Feeling it only fair, she slipped off her leather coat and tugged her own shirt off over her head. She flicked her eyes back over at him and found him glancing at her as well. She couldn’t help the small huff of laughter that came out when their eyes met. The corner of his mouth turned up while he fiddled with the dirty peasant shirt they had picked up from a particularly cantankerous merchant and his eyes slowly moved down to her torso once again. 

Goose flesh popped up along her arms as she felt his gaze on her. Feeling bold, she casually undid the laces on her breeches as well, kicking them off to the floor. Standing only in her small clothes, she let her hair swing over one shoulder as she reached for the worn and stained dress that was to be her disguise. It was loose and long enough that she could strap both of her daggers easily to her thighs, completely hidden.

On second thought, perhaps she would take care of those first rather than the dress. In the corner of her eye, she saw Solas’ hands still as her own started to lace her leather dagger harnesses securely around her thighs. She smiled to herself as she finished fastening the first and switched over to the second on her other leg. Too easy. 

She risked peeking up at him again and was gratified to see that his eyes were tracing along the length of the leg where she was now strapping a third dagger, completely forgetting to continue getting dressed himself.

“Phwooooar,” Sera exhaled from Eres’ other side. 

Eres whipped her head around to where Sera stood clutching her own set of tattered clothing and goggling at her little show with equal parts admiration and amusement. Eres grinned. 

“This isn’t fair, Quizzy. First I find out about you and that well fit pirate pretty in a threesome and now this? Calm it down before I start to get cagey over you like baldy.”

Solas made a strangled noise of horror from her other side.

Eres’ grin grew another notch. “Well, we definitely wouldn’t want that, Sera. ‘Sides, I’m far too elfy for you anyway.”

“Yeah, right?” Sera laughed as she pulled on a tunic that was fairly similar to her usual day wear, but a bit less colorful.

Finishing up her last harness, Eres turned to look at Solas again. He had put on his own peasant shirt and his eyebrows were pulled down in a frown even as his mouth was quirked up at the corners. He was tugging on one of the boots that were required wear for an elven servant. She slipped the voluminous, moldy-smelling dress on and strapped her equipment belt around her waist. She took off her lockpick set, after deeming it too conspicuous, but kept the pouches holding her various grenades. Hopefully it would go unnoticed.  

“How are the boots?” She asked once she had finished with the clothing portion of her disguise.

Solas looked up at her from his seat and flexed his feet a few times. 

“Odd.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling. Is it going to be a problem for you?”

“I shall endeavour to endure,” he replied dryly, and she chuckled. 

Merrill came bustling back inside with a wooden plate piled with dirt and started fussing with Eres’ hair. She carefully drew it all up into a small knot and handed over a scarf for Eres to wrap around her head to hide the part of her hair that she kept cropped short. Eres dipped her fingers in the dirt and rubbed it sparingly in a few choice places on her face, giving her cheeks that ‘just-marched-a-hundred-miles-and-slept-on-the-hard-ground look’.

After Merrill had moved onto Sera, Eres examined her appearance in the locked eluvian. The reflection staring back at her was grimy and too skinny in the huge dress. She almost looked exactly like some of the beggars she had seen cowering in corners around Kirkwall. Almost.

“Hey, what do you all think about the vallaslin? Any ideas how to hide it? I’m a little concerned that it’ll be a dead giveaway I’m not a servant.”

She turned from the mirror and was surprised to see Solas staring at her with tired, sad eyes. He looked away and folded his actual clothes, setting them on Merrill’s bed. 

“Hmm… Well, it’s not unheard of for alienage elves to have tattoos. I think it’ll probably be fine. Hopefully,” Merrill said, tapping her chin. 

“I suppose,” Eres sighed. 

They put the finishing touches on their disguises and assembled all of the gear they wouldn’t be able to carry with them in neat piles. They had decided that Sera could get away with carrying her bow and quiver so long as she made it look as though she was delivering them to a soldier in the camp and that she had no idea how one would actually hold a bow. Solas, however, would not be able to bring his staff. He had assured her that he was perfectly able to perform his magic without one, so Eres had deferred to his judgement. 

“Right, so Merrill, will you be ok carrying all of this to Isabela’s ship?”

“I expect so. The docks aren’t far.”

“Thank you. For everything. I really… I will be forever in your debt.”

Eres stretched out her hand and Merrill rushed past it to give her a hug. 

“ _Dareth shiral_ , Lethallin,” Merrill mumbled against Eres’ shoulder. “May the Dread Wolf never catch your scent.”

Eres hugged her back tightly. She had enjoyed her time spent talking with the flighty Dalish elf. 

“Alright. Everybody ready?” She said when Merrill had ended the hug.

They all nodded and went out to collect the spirit. He was sitting nearly 30 feet up in the _vhenadahl,_ happily swinging his legs back and forth and looking out over the squat buildings of the alienage. 

He looked almost like a child up there, playing dress up with the floppy hat. Eres quickly shook that thought from her head and called up, “We’re heading out! Can you get down from there?”

The spirit looked down at them before it swung itself over to the tree trunk and shimmied its way down. Once it hit the ground, it grabbed its own hand, looking at its fingers in horror and said, “Ow!”

Solas went over to it and carefully grabbed its hand. “Just a splinter, Cole. Hold very still.” He carefully plucked at the small piece of wood in the spirit’s hand and it let out a small gasp as the splinter came free. 

That gasp tugged at Eres’ heart in a way she decided to feel uncomfortable about, and she looked away. 

The party made their way up to Kirkwall’s hightown, stopping alongside the tall wall bordering the Viscount’s keep. Aveline and Eres had decided that this was where they would need to exit the city in order to be close to the trebuchets, but hidden from sight as they scaled down the wall. 

Eres pulled out a long length of rope from Solas’ pack and tied the end into a loop. She tied a scarf over the loop, threading it through the rope's weave and knotting it at the corners.“Solas, can you do the um…” She trailed off as he looked at her in confusion. Fenedhis, what had Deshanna said it was? “The… uh… flying thing?” 

“‘Flying thing’?” 

Eres frowned and thought back to her nights of wreaking mayhem with her friend. 

“An… air heating…” She snapped her fingers. “Ah! Can you heat the air and use a directional ‘mind blast’ to get this rope hooked around one of those rocks on the wall?”

Solas looked amused. “And who came up with this particular manipulation of magic?”

“Deshanna. I told you that you’re going to be able to talk shop with her.”

She waved the rope at him and he stretched out a hand, focusing on it. The rope lifted off of her palm and lazily flew up to the top of the wall. Solas flicked his hand and the rope performed a graceful loop in the air before it settled squarely around the stone Eres had indicated.

“Show off,” she said with a chuckle. 

He only smiled in reply.

Eres grabbed the rope and scaled the wall. The drop on the other side was far greater than what they had just climbed and she found herself fervently grateful that she had thought to bring an extra long length of rope with her from Skyhold. One could never go wrong with extra rope. Once everyone was up, she looped the end around the other side of the wall and they all repelled down. 

“Right, ready to act meek and subservient?” She asked grinning at the two other elves standing before her. 

“Are you?” Solas asked raising an eyebrow at her.  

“First one that tries to touch my arse gets an arrow to the balls,” Sera answered. 

“Fair enough,” Eres told them both. “Spirit, you remember what you’re supposed to do?”

It flickered into invisibility. The air where the spirit had just been standing said, “Stay out of sight and turn the trebuchets into not trebuchets. If they can’t fire, they’re only wood and metal. A new purpose…” It paused. “… They’ll need a new name.”

Eres nodded. “Close enough. Sera, remember you're supposed to not even know which way a bow is supposed to fire. You’re holding it too… right. Alright let’s go.”

They headed out from the wall a ways, until the army’s position came into sight, then angled in a large arc to come into the encampment from behind. Once they drew close enough that the individual people started to look larger than pinpricks, Eres had everybody stay low to the ground, using the naturally rocky terrain to hide their approach. They made it nearly into the camp without being seen, but a man leaning against a rock and swigging from a flask sputtered as he caught sight of Sera dashing quickly to another boulder. 

“Hey! Knife ear! What’re you up to?”

Eres straightened from her own hiding place and walked up to him with her eyes downcast and her hands clasped in front of her. “S-sorry, sir… Messere. We were sent to pick up a bow from the soldiers out on the Wounded Coast.” 

Sera waved the the bow in front of her and shrugged dramatically, throwing her hands up the air to show her utter confusion as to what the piece of the wood with the string could even be. 

Eres continued, “We… we were scared on the way back.”

Sera nodded emphatically. 

“We thought there might be arrows from the walls, so we tried to stay out of sight,” Eres finished. 

A coarse, leather-covered hand gripped Eres’ chin and forced her head up. “You lying to me, knife ear?”

“N-no, Messere!” Eres stammered, shaking her head as much as his hold would allow. 

“‘Cause if you’re lying to me maybe I’ll cut your ears down to a better shape. Teach you a lesson.”

His stale breath blew in Eres’ face and she fought to keep her nose from wrinkling. “No lie, Messere,” she said, widening her eyes in faux-terror at his threat. She highly doubted this man would’ve been able to even hold a knife, judging from how he seemed to be rocking as though he stood aboard a ship at sea.

“What’s, errrr, what’s this shit on your face, then?” He took his hand off of her chin and rubbed his thumb over her Vallaslin. Eres tamped down the urge to shank him. Their chances of not being discovered were better if there was no body lying around with the chance of being found.

“It’s… well, I was born a Dalish elf, Messere, but my mother took me to Starkhaven when I was a small child.” Eres cupped a hand around her mouth and whispered conspiratorially, “She found Andraste, Messere.”

He grunted, pulling his hand away from her cheek. “You were born a savage? Well, blood good that you were broken of that and learned your place. Fucking savages. No sense of civility at all.”

“Indeed.”

He peered at her out of glassy eyes.

“… _Messere,”_ she added, using every bit of willpower she had to not just slit his throat and have done with it. The world would be a better place without this man in it. There was no doubt about that. 

“Well, where’s this bow going, then? I’ll take you to them. Afterwards you can help me with a few… personal tasks.”

He leered and grabbed at her, but Eres had already slipped out of reach under the pretense of stepping closer to Sera to reassure her. She glanced at where Solas was hiding behind a boulder and saw him nod once, fury etched in every line of his face. The plan if they were separated was for him to slip into camp with the spirit and stay nearby to make sure it wasn’t noticed. He was also supposed to start tiny fires at the places where the ropes connected to the wood of the trebuchets, so that there would be a delay in their firing and the spirit would have time to dismantle them more thoroughly. Eres had hoped when she talked with Aveline that the trebuchet workers would put down the fires to too much friction on the ropes.

Eres side-stepped without turning as the soldier’s hand once again reached out to smack her rear. He flailed as his hand failed to connect with anything and his liquor-soaked brain tried to keep his balance. 

“Shall we go into the camp, Messere?” Eres asked as she turned and gave him an innocent, wide-eyed smile. 

He coughed. “Yes, yes. Come on you two. Don’t know why you’re taking so long to do your fucking job.”

Eres and Sera set off with the man following them. They went a few paces, but then the man’s footsteps abruptly stopped and Eres heard a quiet, staccato crack. She turned to see a pair of feet being dragged behind the boulder where Solas had been hiding. Her stomach twisted. Did Solas think she couldn’t have taken care of the man herself if she had wanted him dead? 

Solas straightened, rage snarling over his features.

Oh.

No, that did not appear to have been his thought process at all. _Solas_ wanted that man dead. She had seen his temper before, but this was… beyond anything he had demonstrated thus far. It clashed violently with the mental image of the man that had held her as she poured out her worries only the night before. Though, she supposed, they were all killers. It was not the murder that bothered her, she thought uneasily, so much as anger behind it. She was all but numb to killing by now, but Solas had always been pragmatic and killed only with purpose. That soldier’s death had been unnecessary. Gratifying, yes, but ultimately not pertinent to their mission. As their eyes met over the distance, he looked at her steadily. His expression softened after a moment and she wondered what he was reading from her own gaze.

Sera jabbed her in the ribs with the bow and motioned for Eres to get moving. Solas was smart enough to know that the body would need to be properly disposed of before he went to do his job, and Eres had to trust that he and the spirit would take care of their part in the plan. The two women walked quickly into the camp, looking for the supply tents. 

“Still have the bees?” Eres asked under breath. 

Sera smirked.

“Always.”

“Excellent. Save them for now.”

They spotted the supply tents fairly quickly and set about making phase one happen. Sera headed off to go and demand extra rations for her imaginary employer, laying on an extra thick layer of nonsensical obnoxiousness for the bored-looking woman holding the ledger book. Eres drew up the edge of the tent, checking quickly for any feet walking around inside. Empty. She slipped under the fabric and surveyed the boxes of dried meats and sacks of vegetables in front of her. She thought of the powdered deathroot in the pouches at her waist and how efficient it would be if she was to sprinkle her stores over the food lined up in front of her. It would effectively make her a borderline monster, but it would undoubtably be efficient. 

Her hand twitched towards the pouches, but she thought of Aveline’s expression of horror when she had suggested it. She also thought of waking up tomorrow and having to live with herself knowing that she had mass-murdered an entire camp of soldiers - people - in such away. Poison was a cold weapon, best used on personal targets. 

She sighed and instead went for her grenades. _Stick with the plan_. She and Sera were in charge of mayhem, and mayhem was something she could easily get behind. The grenade’s explosion radius was small enough that no one would be hit unless they were inside the tents, but everything directly around it would be utterly trashed. And damned if she wasn’t excited to see what that would look like in a loosely enclosed tent. She placed the grenade squarely in front of the boxes and ran a spool of fuse wire back out under the tent. She slipped out herself and moved onto the next, repeating the process with three more tents, attaching a fuse wire to each grenade in turn. She finished with the last tent and slipped out further to catch Sera’s eye, giving her a small nod. Sera immediately wrapped up whatever she was saying and wandered to safer distance, pretending to look around for her employer. Eres had been careful to use small stones to prop up the thick tent canvases to allow the flame to travel along the wires unimpeded. As she struck a bit of flint with steel where she had gathered the four ends of the highly flammable thread, she fervently hoped that it would earn herself four simultaneous, glorious explosions. 

She quickly made her way over to Sera and the two started walking away, stopping and asking random passersby if they had seen ‘Corporal Dickwheeler’ anywhere. The name had been Sera’s contribution to the plan.

Four echoing explosions went off in quick succession, and Eres turned to admire her handiwork as bits of cabbage rained down over the camp. 

Phase one: done. People were barking out cries of consternation, scrambling to see what had happened. She and Sera easily made their way closer to where workers were making last minute adjustments to a battering ram.

“Bees?” Sera asked, practically vibrating with eagerness.

“Bees,” Eres confirmed and watched as Sera quickly drew out two flasks from the sack she had slung over her shoulder and flung them hard under the battering ram at either end. The flasks smashed releasing an actual cloud of hornets that attacked anything near them that dared to move, which was everything. 

Eres elbowed Sera when she started to laugh and they moved to go meet Solas and the Spirit. They had only gone a few pace when Solas came walking into view, holding a sack of potatoes. He caught up to them and unceremoniously dumped the potatoes on the ground. He did something with his hand that made the ground shift and the potatoes sank beneath the earth. 

“Had to pick them up in order to avoid suspicion,” he explained. “No sense in destroying them if they have a chance to grow, however.” 

“Is that how you hid the body as well?” Eres asked, sounding more accusatory than she had planned. 

He cast his eyes down at the ground where the potatoes were now planted and nodded, frowning. 

“Well, at least there’s no chance it’ll be found.” 

“Eres…” He started to say. 

“No, no. I get it. I would’ve killed him myself if I had known you could’ve gotten rid of the corpse like that.” 

“We should probably go,” said a voice from the air at Solas’ side. “The people here are angry. They’re looking for someone to blame.”

The spirit had a point. 

She nodded. 

“Time to make our grand escape.”

Solas caught sight of the battering ram suspended in a frame by metal chains, unattended while the soldiers still fought off the swarms of bees. Eres watched as he flicked out a hand, making ice form along the metal. He drew back a fist and the frozen metal shattered, causing the battering ram to fall to the ground, now just a glorified tree trunk. 

“Nice.”

He shrugged, and the four crept through the camp to where the army’s horses were tied. This was the part of the plan that Eres had the most doubts about. She threw one of her smoke grenades at the ground and drew up her skirt to pull one of her daggers from its harness. She ran along the enclosure, slashing at the leathers tethering the horses to the wooden posts driven into the ground as Sera burst out into a bawdy rendition of Andraste’s Mabari. The horses nickered in dismay at the noise and took off, running in all directions. She saved the last two horses and the spirit flickered into visibility, rushing forward to comfort the steeds. Eres hopped up on one bareback after the spirit had calmed them, and he clambered up on the back of the other. Solas joined her and Sera grudgingly climbed up behind the boy. 

Eres squeezed her heels into the horses’ side, gathering up fistfuls of its mane and they took off. Solas’ arms snaked around her waist as the horse gathered speed. An arrow flew past her head. She turned back to see archers running up into a formation as other people wildly pointed at the two retreating horses. More arrows started flying and Solas threw up barriers around them and the horses. The spirit’s hat flew off in the wind from the gallop and he gasped in dismay.

“I’ll get you another one!” She shouted trying to make herself be heard over the wind rushing past their ears.

“Ok!” He shouted back.

They made for the Wounded Coast where Isabela had a man waiting with a rowboat to bring them out to the ship. Soon they were far out of range of the archers, and Eres started to relax. Aveline had marked on the map where the enemies were guarding the entrances into Kirkwall, and she guided their horses around those areas. They dismounted when they hit the beach, letting the horses run free.

“Look around for a rowboat. Should have a guy that Isabela described as being ‘built like a great bear and only slightly less hairy’.”

Another arrow zinged right where her head would’ve been if she hadn’t turned to look around. 

Soldiers wearing Starkhaven-branded armor trickled onto the beach. Had she not lead them far enough east along the coast? 

She pulled up her skirt, drawing out her daggers once more and felt Solas put out another barrier around them. Eres tossed a smoke grenade at her feet, hiding the group and took off around the edge of the beach, weaving between boulders to get to the archers. 

She drew out her spare dagger, placing her main between her teeth, leaned out and threw the spare end over end at the archer on the right. It drove into his upper thigh and she had to hope it had cut through his femoral artery. She took up her main hand dagger once again, and somersaulted out of the cover, rolling over to where the one archer had fallen to the ground. She quickly slit his throat in case she hadn’t hit the artery and ducked behind another stone as the two other archers focused on her. 

A bolt of ice flew past and struck one of them, freezing him solid. She took her opportunity and lunged forward once again, aiming to shatter him with a leaping strike. Her foot caught in something on the ground and she looked down in disbelief to see a rusty bear trap closed around her ankle, half-hidden by some scrub brush. How had she not seen it? Pain shot up her leg as she instinctually struggled to free herself. The last of her barrier trickled away. _Calm. Calm down._

She bent down to try to find the mechanism that would send the trap springing open. Her hand scrabbled desperately at the sand-clogged hinge, but then a searing pain came up from her left shoulder. She looked over at it and saw an arrow protruding out from her unarmored body. 

“Fantastic,” she muttered, still trying to pop open the trap. There was nothing she could do about the arrows flying at her unless she could move. Another slammed into her, hitting lower than the first and crashing into a rib, thankfully not fully shattering it, judging from her ability to still breathe. She snarled at the pain. Suddenly, the spirit appeared at her side and deftly sprung open the trap. She made to dive behind the rock again, but her leg crumpled under the pain traveling up in waves from her mangled ankle. The world started to spin. 

As she fell to the cold, damp sand she felt the tingle of a barrier going up around her once again before her vision turned dark around the edges and she lost consciousness. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 40k words, wooooo!!


	13. Antivan Brandy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile, at Skyhold...

Josephine sucked on the end of her quill as she weighed the pros and cons of adding a compliment in her letter about Lady Amandine’s outfit when she had departed Skyhold the prior morning. It would send a clear message that the Inquisition appreciated her as a benefactor, but it would also make her comfortable in requesting any flighty, unreasonable thing that struck her fancy, which was unacceptable. Josephine instead opted to throw in a wish for her nephew’s continuing health. That should be subtle enough to remind Lady Amandine that she was replaceable, yet polite enough to keep her from being offended. She put an extra flourish on the last letter, basking in the satisfaction of a note well-written. 

Josephine glanced over at the precariously balanced stack of papers that had built up in the few days the Inquisitor had been absent from the Skyhold. Among the pile of audience requests, requisition orders and Ben-Hassrath reports was one particular note that Josephine had drawn up herself. She had slipped it neatly into the middle of the pile, as a metaphor to let the world know just how unworried about it she was going to be until the Inquisitor returned.

She leaned back in her chair and pressed her palms to her eyes. Ok, so maybe she had done the metaphorical placing of it in the pile, but she was having trouble getting her brain to metaphorically seal it away as effectively as her paperwork had. 

The door to her office swung open and she dropped her hands quickly, adjusting herself into a more ambassadorial position. A scout walked in holding a small roll of fabric. 

“Ah! Are these the fabric samples for the formal attire?”

He nodded and she reached out, excited. This was one task she could not wait to work on. 

The scout whipped the fabric out, wrapping it around her wrists, lightning fast. He jerked back, bringing Josephine sprawling forward onto her desk. Her legs waved awkwardly in the air while her mind screamed “MOVE!”

She rolled over, ripping her hands free of the cloth binding and fell hard off the side of the desk, smashing an ink pot and sending her stack of papers flying everywhere. She looked around wildly to try and understand what was going on. A dagger stuck out of the desk where she had been sprawled moments before. The scout was already pulling it out of the wood of the desk. 

Josephine squawked in alarm and struggled to her feet, attempting to run. She didn’t get more than a few paces when she hit the floor once again. She looked back to see more of that silky material with weights on either end wrapped around her knees. The assassin had made it into a bolo. She cursed herself for having given up completely on her bardic training. Not that she wanted to kill her attacker, but perhaps her acrobatics would have been a smidgen less rusty and she wouldn’t be stuck in her current predicament on the cold stone floor. 

She flailed around, trying to unwrap the bolo around her legs as the assassin advanced on her once more. 

“The House of Repose regrets your death, but business is business,” he said in accent dripping with smugness that only an Orlesian could muster. 

Josephine turned to her last option and, as any respectable noble lady would, let out a blood curdling scream. Not her best; Yvette would’ve tittered at the lack of projection (Josephine had been lax about her vocal training as well), but there was only so much she could work with having had the wind knocked out of her from hitting the ground face-first. Much to her satisfaction, she heard foot steps running from the direction of the great hall. 

The assassin paused, debating whether to run or finish his contract. Josephine used his moment of indecision to kick out with her still-bound legs, catching the assassin’s knees and locking them in what she knew to be a most painful manner.

The office door burst open and Scout Harding came running in, saying “Ambassador Montilyet, I heard-“

She took in Josephine on the ground and the fake scout falling to the ground behind her, clutching his knees. Harding grabbed an arrow out of her quiver and fired it right into the assassin’s eye. 

Josephine slumped down, letting out a long breath. 

“Um, Ambassador Montilyet? Are you alright?” Harding asked, rushing forward to help Josephine up from the floor.

Josephine wanted nothing more than to stay sprawled out on the ground and let her heart rate calm down, but that was not how an Antivan lady behaved. She grabbed Harding’s proffered hand and slid herself up to a seated position, unwrapping the makeshift bolo from around her knees. 

She stood, brushing off her pantaloons, taking note of the huge splash of ink sprayed across them. 

“Yes… yes I am fine. Aside from the copious amounts of paperwork this will take. I’ll have to draw up a report of what happened - an attack within Skyhold? Ridiculous. We’ll have to keep word from getting out to our guests. Perhaps I should make a request for more patrols after I lay out the structure of the inquiry-“

“Ambassador?”

Josephine paused in listing her plans, acutely aware that she had been rambling. “Yes?”

“I think you need a drink.”

Josephine reached for her writing tablet and quill. “Oh no no, I couldn’t. Somebody must take care of the political ramifications of this and start the reports on Skyhold security,” she said, dipping her quill into the ink spilled across the floor and hastily writing the first few words of a report, sloppy from her shaking hands.

“Yeeeeah, I’m sure that all needs to get done… but the Inquisitor isn’t even here, and I know that _I_ need a drink. Gonna have to assume you need one too.”

Josephine looked up from her outline of what she wanted to say about the attack. Harding was smiling up at her, looking confused. The fluffy end of Josephine’s quill trembled in time with her hands. 

“Perhaps you a right,” Josephine said with a sigh as she laid down her writing table. “I am a bit shaken. Forgive my rambling. Problems always seem to be less so if I break them down into parts to processed, but perhaps this-“ she waved at the body on the floor “is a shade too unruly for me to process yet.” 

“Ok, well, great! I’ll just let someone know to clean up the mess and meet you in the tavern in fifteen,” said Harding, giving Josephine a last reassuring smile before bustling out of the room. 

Josephine stood wringing her hands, unsure of what to do with her fifteen minutes. She could changed out of her ink-spattered cloths, she supposed. She glanced at the body on the floor and the pooling blood. She glanced over at her writing desk. Well, one more note surely wouldn’t hurt anything. 

Josephine made it down to the tavern in ten minutes, after having drawn up a pay raise request for Scout Harding and scribbling herself a few notes on the attack. She had not yet ventured into the tavern, and took a moment upon stepping inside to soak up the atmosphere. The place was large, but the old wood and soft songs coming from the bard in the middle of the room gave it a cozy feel. Josephine approved. She may have lived the noble life and worked for royalty, but places like this always managed to make her feel deeply comfortable. They felt more honest.

“Might you have any Antivan brandy?” She asked the surly looking bartender. 

He grunted and poured a pull of dark alcohol into a dubiously clean glass. She sniffed, savoring the smell of spice and wood and took a small sip. The alcohol burned in her throat, making her eyes water. She had been teetotaling since joining with the Inquisition, and clearly her tolerance for alcohol had been somewhat diminished as a result. She had never had a particularly high tolerance in the first place, come to think of it. Perhaps food was in order as well. It would not do for her to be lolling in her seat. There were appearances to be kept, even here. 

“And have you any sort of meat pie or stew?”

Wordless, he went back to the kitchen behind the bar and came out bearing a large bowl filled with tantalizingly-scented stew and a crust of bread. She thanked him and dropped a few silvers on the counter before scouting out a table far away enough from the bard to ease her instincts on that account. 

She spread a cloth daintily over her lap and arranged her cutlery into some semblance of proper order while she waited for Scout Harding to join her. Her stomach rumbled as she contemplated the stew sitting on the table before her, but it would’ve been unbearably rude to begin her meal without her dining companion. She settled for sipping again at the brandy, relishing the hot feeling it poured into her stomach and the taste of home in her mouth. She had not been in Antiva for some time, and though she did not actively think on it often - she was far too busy for that - this break in her work and the spiced liquor gave her time to remember the sunbaked beauty of Antiva City. She hoped she would have the chance to see it again. 

“Heeeey Ambassador! Didn’t expect to ever see you slumming it down here!”

She jumped and swiveled in her seat to see the Iron Bull walking back from the bar with a massive tankard in his hand. “Hello Iron Bull,” she said politely, “Yes, I’m a little surprised to find myself here as well, but Scout Harding was very insistent that I join her.” She gestured at an empty chair. “Would you care to sit? Harding will likely be along in a moments time.”

“Sure,” he said easily as he fitted his massive bulk onto the chair at the table. “You try the stew yet? Cabot makes a mean pot of slop.”

Her nose wrinkled at the choice of word.

“N-not that it’s actually slop,” he amended hastily. “Only a figure of… sorry ma’am.”

Josephine raised her eyebrows in amusement. “Am I to receive the same verbal treatment as Madame de Fer?”

“Errr… yes ma’am. For now, ma’am.”

She laughed as Harding walked in. 

“Glad to see you’re already doing better, Ambassador. I’ll just grab a drink and join you in a minute.”

Bull looked quizzically at Josephine. “Doing better?”

Josephine took a swig of brandy before answering, “Well… I had something of an incident earlier today.”

When Bull said nothing, she continued, “there was an assassin. Nothing to worry about. I’ve already started on the report for when the Inquisitor gets back.”

He looked at her, mouth open. Harding slid down next to Josephine, holding a glass of white wine. 

“Already telling him about the reports I take it?” 

“Um… yes. I’m starving! Are you starving?” Josephine hastily grabbed the spoon she had so carefully placed and tucked into her stew. It was wonderful - warm and savory with the slightest dash of chiles. She let out a small moan of approval and immediately threw her hand up to her mouth, looking around wildly at her two companions. “Oh! Do excuse me. I don’t know what’s come over me today.”

“Maybe the assassination attempt?” Bull suggested. 

“Do you want to talk about it, Ambassador Montilyet?” Harding asked, looking at her with concern. 

Josephine dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her napkin and folded it back into perfect proportions before dropping it onto her lap once more. Did she want to talk about it? She could hardly believe it had even happened. Talking about it would make it feel more real. Although, she supposed, she had better start to think of it as a real problem, lest her guard be dropped once again when the next attack came. Next attack? Her stomach lurched. Yes, perhaps she should. 

“You may call me Josephine. After all, you did just save my life.” 

Harding smiled and nodded in a way that delightfully pulled at her freckles, Josephine noted. She took another bite of stew and contemplated what to say. She supposed she should probably start at the beginning. 

“The other day I received word that some of my servants bearing papers to lift trade restrictions placed on my family were murdered on the way to Val Royeaux. I thought it odd, but not supremely urgent. Not compared to the attacks on the Inquisitor’s family or the war in Kirkwall. I filed a note for the Inquisitor to read when she gets back, but then today, well, you heard. An assassin came into my office dressed as an Inquisition scout, and I was entirely unprepared for such an eventuality.”

She hastily quaffed the last of her brandy, and started to feel a slight buzzing in her head. Perhaps she should have eaten the stew before going for the drink.

Bull let out a low whistle. “Wow, they got someone into Skyhold? Thought this place was damn near impenetrable.” 

Josephine nodded. She had thought so too. To have something like this so soon after another temporary home had just been destroyed… She missed feeling safe. Or rather, she hated the illusion of safety crumbling down around her. That was closer to the truth of the matter. 

“Ambass- Josephine, do you want me to have my guys patrol past your office whenever they rotate off field duty?” Harding asked.

“Or I could have the Chargers spend more time out of the tavern. Probably’d be good for their livers. Krem just spends most of his time sitting in a corner anyway. Might as well be a corner where he could actually do some good.”

“Heard that, Chief!”

“Good!” Bull shouted back, followed with a chuckle. 

“No, no, it shan’t be necessary. I’ll talk to Commander Cullen about the guard rotation. We are still figuring out how to run things here anyway.” 

The tavern seemed to sway more than a proper, self-respecting tavern should. 

“Refill, Ambass-Josephine?”

“Yes, thank you, Harding. Antivan brandy.”

“Going for the hard stuff, huh?”

“It tastes ‘slike home,” Josephine explained. 

The Iron Bull snorted into his tankard. 

“Gonna eat more of that stew, ma’am? Might be a good idea.”

Josephine delicately lifted another spoonful to her mouth. It really was good stew. She watched Harding over at the bar while she chewed. The scout had quite nice hair. Like Leliana’s, but with more gold shot through it. Yes, it was very nice hair, and the scout had been very nice to ask her out to drinks. She was already feeling much, much better. 

The door swung open with a bang and Leliana came striding in. “There you are, Josie! I just received a raven from Solas. They are on a ship headed to Wycome from Kirkwall, but the Inquisitor… is unwell. She has contracted some sort of infection from an injury. Something about a rusty bear trap. His letter sounded concerned, which is rare for our apostate from what I’ve seen of him.”

Harding returned to the table with another glass of brandy, and Josephine knocked the whole thing back without hesitation. If she was to deal with this sort of news on top of everything, she was going to need some liquid courage to settle her nerves. She dabbed at her mouth once again and set the glass down on the table. The Iron Bull looked impressed. 

Leliana raised a brow. “Drinking this early in the day, Josie?”

Harding cut in, “That would be my doing, Lady Nightingale. I thought that the Ambass-Josephine might need to calm down after the attack.”

“Attack?” Leliana’s nostrils flared and her eyes flashed.

Josephine tried to subtly kick Harding under the table, but it was too late. Damage done.

“What does she mean, Josie?”

Josephine sighed, resigned for the coming storm. “The House of Repose paid me a visit today. I am not sure why yet, but apparently there is a contract on me.”

“What! How could I not have known of this? I am going to flay Fry alive. Clearly he is not up to handling our operations in Val Royeaux.”

“Leli, it’s fine, I will handle it. Once Eres gets back-“

“If she gets back,” Leliana cut across darkly. 

Josephine smacked her friend’s arm. “That’s a horrible thing to say! I’m sure Solas will have no difficulty fixing whatever injury the Inquisitor has sustained.”

“I’m going to hunt them down. Every last one until the House of Repos-“

Josephine smacked her again, harder this time. “Niceness before knives, Leliana!”

Leliana glowered down at her. Harding chuckled. 

“You know I hate that, don’t you?”

Josephine tried to summon a winning smile. She was worried about Leliana. Her friend had become immeasurably more grim since their times together before the Fifth Blight. Her position as Nightingale, while important, had always rubbed Josephine the wrong way. She missed the Leliana that would discuss shoes and nugs with her for hours. Not that she did not love her just the same, but it hurt to see her friend so hell bent on adding more death to the world. 

Leliana rolled her eyes at Josephine’s smile and said, “Well, come on, we’re at least going to go have words with Cullen about his guard’s inability to keep murderers out of our fortress. Loud words.”

Josephine looked sadly down at the stew she had barely touched, but stood, swaying as she felt just how much the brandy had gone to her head. She turned back to Iron Bull and Harding. “Thank you for dining with me. It was a most enjoyable experience.”

Before her boozy mind had a chance to catch up with her instincts, Josephine leaned down and gave Harding a tight hug. Awkward, because of Harding’s seated position and Josephine’s standing, but she squeezed the scout nonetheless. 

“And thank you,” she added, “for saving me.”

Harding blushed and Josephine was thankful for her own already liquor-reddened cheeks. Veterans of the game should not blush, even when uncomfortably hugging scouts with freckles and outstanding life-saving capabilities.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We now return you to your regularly scheduled program. 
> 
> Ok sooooo...  
> I’ve really wanted to try and thread in a third perspective. Partly to show the Solas/Lavellan story through a different pair of eyes and to challenge myself to write each character more inside of their own personalities, if that makes sense? Plus, I think Josephine is a wildly competent cupcake of a person and I love the shit out of her.


	14. Fever Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> En route to Wycome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guuuyyssss thank you for all of the reads/bookmarks/kudos/comments! Literally every one of them makes my day.

_She ran, heart thumping wildly in her chest, not enough breath left in her lungs to keep up the pace much longer. The smell of ozone surrounded her; a sharp note against the backdrop scent of grass and night. The dense air stirred around her in impossible patterns, crackling with energy - as though a big storm was about to sweep through and wipe her away. On she flew through the endless waving fields of grass with only the thousands of stars above to illuminate the night._

_The grass bent down in a shock wave, bowing forward in front of her in huge, arcing ripples. Power rushed at her back, nipping at her heels and she ran faster, faster. The edges of the sky turned green, cutting through the color of void and starlight. She would not make it. There was no way to escape. She slowed, breathing hard, and turned to watch as the barrier between reality and dreams dissolved over the world, like paper going up in the wake of a great green flame. Not a rift, not a breach; a complete, rapid shriveling of what she had once fought so hard to keep intact. On the horizon, in all directions there was only more stars and blowing grass. She was alone as the world changed with whispering, reaching power._

_Before the last lines of sky had been consumed by the swirling nothingness, a silhouetted figure appeared on the horizon. The figure reached out to her from across the plains, surrounded by a halo of violently bright green light. Her hand roared to life in kind. Wind whipped her hair back, blowing her coat behind her and she slowly began walking towards the figure, reaching out her fade-marked hand._

Eres cracked her eyes open, and promptly rolled into a wall of sacks piled alongside the pallet she was lying on. The world was rocking in a steady, rhythmic motions. She was in a dark, wood-panelled room filled with stale air. Her legs felt like lead as she tried to roll herself back onto the palett, and her stomach roiled with each move she made. A lantern flickered to life and she looked around. 

“You should not move your leg,” the spirit pointed out.

“I gathered that,” Eres replied dryly. “Where are we?”

“A pirate ship. Admiral Isabela lent me a hat!”

As the spirit stepped closer to her, Eres caught sight of the backlit outline of a red velvet hat, complete with a peacock plume. She strangled the urge to laugh. It was too ridiculous. The spirit’s sad face topped with something so extravagant was too much for her brain to wrap around. She fought down another wave of nausea and laid her head back to try to stop it from spinning.

So she was on Isabela’s ship. That was good. The last thing she remembered was failing miserably at a fight on the Wounded Coast. That, and the spirit - Cole - saving her life. Perhaps she should talk to it - him. So far he hadn’t done anything to play into her fears, and despite her convictions that what was dead should stay dead, she did owe him her life. Plus that hat was really too gods-damned ridiculous.

“I’m sorry that I’m alive and he isn’t. I know that it hurts you,” Cole said quietly. 

Eres jerked up into a sitting position and her stomach heaved at the sudden motion. Cole kneeled down next to her, pulling her hair back as she aimed for the bucket set on the other side of the wall of sacks keeping her from rolling across the room. She wiped her mouth, glaring at the spirit and pulled her hair out of his hands. He had been doing so well, then he had to go and say something like that. 

He looked at her quizzically. “Is that… wrong?”

“It’s not any of your concern.” 

“But… you hurt. Steady, a low rumble, spilling over into everything you touch. I could help you! Unknot the block and let out the pain.”

Eres snorted. Aware she was playing into the spirit’s game, but too furious and tired to stop herself she replied, “So tell me, how exactly could you make that better? Making me forget? I can’t forget. I need to remember to make sure I do better. What could you possibly want to do to me?”

Cole looked even more confused and sat down from his crouching position. “I want to help,” he repeated. “Being here and going back to them is making it worse. Memories burble closer to the surface, hotter, angrier, more regret. Talking would make him better.”

“I don’t want to talk about Ewan!” She shouted. Immediately she was embarrassed at herself. This was not how an adult - an Inquisitor - should act. She hadn’t said his name in years. When she had returned to her clan after her time spent away, her mother had not been there. Deshanna had told Eres that her mother had gone to live with Eres’ father’s clan. Left Lavellan at the last Arlathvhen. Nobody had dared to bring up her brother, not when they got a look at the new fighting style she had displayed when the hunters went after a pack of bandits too close to their camp a few days after her return. 

Cole reached out, pulling her hair back once more as the sea rolled and sent her stomach reeling again. “It’s ok, nothing you did mattered. You couldn’t have saved him.”

Eres finished emptying her stomach and looked back at him sharply. 

“Wait, I said that wrong. Let me try again.”

“If you try to wipe my mind the way you do with people at Skyhold, I’ll break your fingers.”

She raised her hand threateningly, but Cole didn’t look away from her eyes.

“You want it to be your fault, so there’s a reason and it’s not so frightening. But there’s no reason. Ewan just got sick. There was nothing you could’ve changed.”

The anchor flared to life. Eres was braced for the hole of nothingness that gripped her every time she thought of her brother, but it didn’t come. Instead she felt hot, bubbling emotion boiling up in her chest. 

Her voice came out strangled, as she fought the tides of memory and sadness bashing against her. “I could’ve been faster. I could’ve acted sooner. I could’ve stayed and at least been there for when he…” Her breathing hitched, but she plowed on. “I could’ve stayed and been there for my mother, but where was I? Off playing murderer with the shems and _durglen’nen_.” She laughed bitterly. “I don’t deserve to feel better.”

“Everyone deserves to feel better,” he said quietly. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Eres said nothing. She didn’t think she could’ve spoken if she wanted to past the lump in her throat. Cole stood and headed for the door. The feather in his hat bounced jauntily with each step. He nodded at someone in the doorway as he left the room. Eres didn’t look up, instead toying with the bandages wrapped around her chest where the arrow had pierced.

“Heard that, did you?” She asked, as Solas moved into the room. 

He shrugged and knelt down next to her, putting a hand over hers to stop her from disarranging the bandage.

“Not going to ask me about Ewan?”

Solas shrugged again. His hands moved down to her ankle, and she noticed for the first time the sickly red skin spreading up her calf. 

“Oh shit! Is that from that bear trap?”

“Yes. I healed the gash in your leg when we boarded Isabela’s ship, but the infection had already started to spread.”

“How long have I been out?”

“A couple of days. We are nearing our destination.”

His hand lit up with blue light as he passed it over the angry red skin. She hissed in a breath. The infection buzzed in reaction to whatever magic Solas was pouring into it. 

“It’s almost uncanny how you always seem to be around whenever I’m unconscious for days,” she said through clenched teeth. 

“No, what is uncanny is your ability to create these situations that cause you to lose consciousness in the first place.”

“Point,” she acknowledged. 

The light in his hands ended and he looked up at her. He looked terrible: face pallid, dark circles under his eyes. “I’ll need to change the bandages on the arrow wounds as well. The arrows had poisoned tips, something to make your blood run thinner than normal. Perhaps the cause of the infection spreading so quickly. If I may?” He asked, gesturing to her chest. 

She grunted in the affirmative and sat up so he could unwrap the bandage circling her torso. 

“Bit weird for soldiers to use poisoned arrows,” she observed, wincing as the the cloth peeled away from the wound. 

He nodded. “Captain Isabela suspects that Prince Vael assigned special patrols to the coast, expecting the apostate Anders to flee through the darktown exits if he was somehow inside Kirkwall. They were not looking to take any prisoners.”

Blood ran dawn her stomach and dripped onto the floor when the bandage came fully free. Solas hummed in disapproval and put a hand to her uninjured shoulder, pushing her back down flat on the ground.

“Stay still,” he commanded and went over to a far corner of the room, coming back with his pack. He pulled out a few vials of lyrium and downed them in rapid succession, shivering once they were emptied. 

“I’ve never tried lyrium before,” she commented, watching his hands shake as he settled himself over her on one of the sacks and began pushing healing magic into the wound.

“It is not my beverage of choice, to be sure, but it is necessary at the present. I have not had much success healing you. The poison is something I have not come across before, and I do not know how to cease its effects.”

Eres reached a hand to the cut, carefully dipping a finger into the blood pooling around her navel. She brought the finger to her nose and sniffed. 

“Reeks of blood lotus, so it’s probably Adders Kiss. It would explain the bleeding. I used to use it…” She trailed off, remembering her conversation with Cole. Well, Solas had already heard at least a little about her time spent away from the clan. Too late to keep that particular tale in its entirety away from him. “I uh, used to use it,” she continued, “on marks that were known to be quick to flee. It usually made sure they didn’t get far without bleeding out. Witherstalk on its own works as a good antidote. My clan will probably have some stored.”

He hummed again in acknowledgment, focusing on healing

“Still no questions?” She had expected at least some small reaction to her use of the word “mark”.

He sat back, sighing. “Of course I have questions. Would you expect a fair exchange of information if I was to ask them, though? That I am not ready to offer.”

“Is that a part of your ‘considerations’?”

Solas smiled tiredly before answering, “Yes, I suppose it is. Also, you did tell Cole in no uncertain terms that you did not wish to speak of your past. Why would I pry?”

He re-bandaged the chest wound and moved up to her shoulder. 

“You had no problem trying to pry into my love life the other day,” Eres pointed out. 

His hands stopped unwrapping the bandage. 

“I seem to recall someone else to be the one requesting specific stories.”

Eres chuckled and winced as more blood trickled down her side, staining her already filthy breast band. Solas quickly resumed his work. Footsteps sounded at the stairs again and another magnificently large hat proceeded its owner into view.

“Sooo, you live. Good. It was touch and go for a while there. Baldy here stayed up for for a few nights straight to make sure you didn’t accidentally bleed to death while we all slept,” Isabela said, sweeping into the room. 

Eres glanced up at Solas’ face, where he was bent over her shoulder. His eyes met hers and he half-shrugged. She hadn’t realized that it was that bad.

“Well, Inquisitor, If you think of a way to thank him that calls for a third party,” Isabela said with an over-the-top wink and a laugh, “you know where to find me. Or at least until I drop you off. After that you probably will have no idea how to find me. That’d just be silly.”

“Unfortunately, Captain, rigorous physical activity would be hazardous for the Inquisitor at the present.” Solas said without looking away from Eres. He casually reached out and flicked a lock of hair away from her cheek. 

For a moment, Eres had thought she had heard him incorrectly. There was no way this conversation could be happening. Her fever must have been picking up again. She opened her mouth to say something, but Isabela kept talking.

“Ohh, so that's how it is, is it?” she asked, coming over to sit on one of the sacks opposite Solas. “I like him, Inquisitor. He’s got that possessive, woodsman thing going for him. Even without hair.”

“I try,” Solas said dryly. 

No. This conversation was definitely not happening. Not a chance.

“Whatever happened to that dwarf, by the way? I liked her as well. She was quite the spitfire if I’m remembering right. What was her name?”

Eres cleared her throat to buy herself a moment to think. She truly hadn’t been intending to stroll down this particular piece of memory lane with Solas present, but he was still working at her shoulder and Isabela was looking down at her expectantly. 

“Uh, Taegin. She, well, we had a bit of a falling out.”

“Ah, shame, you two seemed close.”

Yeah. They had been. Up until Taegin had sold her out, that is. Eres had never kidded herself into believing that Taegin loved her. Not really. But she had at least thought that they had been close enough to not pick up the bounties set on each other’s heads or to leave each other, say, standing in the middle of the First Enchanter’s private study holding an enchanted ruby-encrusted dagger while a dozen city guards and templars laid in wait. Eres missed that dagger more than she missed Taegin, now that she looked back on it all. Not that Isabela or Solas needed to know any of that. 

Talk turned to idle chit chat. Isabela excused herself after a while to go make sure “her boys” weren’t about to crash her ship into any of the reefs surrounding Wycome. Solas finished redressing Eres’ wounds and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands before looking up at her. 

“You should sleep while you can. I imagine we’ll be arriving in a few hours.”

“Actually, I wanted to go up on the deck. The only other time I’ve been at sea was the trip to the conclave, and I was locked down in the hold with about fifty other people.”

Solas’ nose wrinkled as he frowned. “Why?”

“Ah, well, you know. Boats take money that we Dalish don’t exactly have stockpiled, so I got the cattle treatment for that trip. But whatever, I want to see what it’s like up there while I have the chance.” She made to heave herself up, but his hand flew to her sternum, holding her down.

“Lethallan, you can’t walk on that leg.”

“Well then I’ll hop on the other.”

She made to push up again, but he held her down more firmly. 

“Let me up.”

“No.” 

He started to smirk and Eres felt her temper rising. 

“Solas, I’m not a child. Let me up.”

“No.”

She shoved at the sacks he was seated on and he went tumbling to the wooden floor. She started to sit up and move her good leg under herself, but he was already back, standing over her. He grabbed both of her wrists in a vice-like grip and crouched down so his face was on her level. 

“Eres,” he said warningly. 

“ _Fenedhis lasa_! I’m going to see the gods-damned ocean, Solas.”

She tried to jerk her hands free, but he held tighter, smirk growing.

“You are going to aggravate your shoulder if you keep trying to pull free.”

“So let go,” she challenged. 

“To make myself perfectly clear, _Lethallan,”_ he said with pointed emphasis. “I will literally tie you down before I let you hobble up those stairs on a rocking ship.”

“I’d like to see you try, _Lethallin,”_ she quipped back. 

Something in his expression shifted, turned more dangerous, and Eres found herself wondering if perhaps she should’ve used a different wording of her protest. He looked down at her with darkened eyes and suddenly the air around them was electric. The warmth of his hands around her wrists grew distracting, but she couldn’t look away from his gaze. He moved closer to her face, eyes half-lidded and Eres’ heart went sputtering away at twice its normal rate; anticipation of kissing him building in every fiber of her being with each passing second.

“You need to _sleep,”_ he murmured, and everything went black.

That night she dreamt of sailing across glassy black waters, illuminated by starlight; soft breezes tinged with sea-salt air and the sound of waves gently breaking upon the hull of her ship.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eres is definitely under the assumption that Cole is not meant to be alive, and it bothers that he has the... privilege? of being like that when other people don't. Which isn't even an accurate read on the situation in the first place, just her skewed gut reaction to him running wild through her perceptions. At least Cole's starting to get to her a little bit, and making her start to deal with some of her issues. I nearly *nearly* had her get over it this time around, but man, it's kind of a huge gaping issue. Things like that don't settle down quickly.
> 
> Also couldn't resist having Solas throw her a bone in her dreams. She wanted to see the sea, so he gave her the sea. Which is... adorable to me. And a super roundabout way of making up for not letting her break herself even further by wobbling around a ship with multiple injuries.
> 
> LOOK at this kick ass commission I got from [Blackheath-art](http://blackheath-art.tumblr.com/)! Highly recommend you commission this person if you're on the edge about getting someone to draw something. Super talented, super professional.


	15. Fenedhis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas lets his head catch up with him. The crew leaves Isabela's ship and arrives in Wycome.

Solas refitted Eres’s bandages once again the next morning, using an extra layering of cloth to stem the blood now that they were going to be moving her. Once he had finished, he reached out with his magic to undo the sleeping enchantment he had used the night before. It had been an underhanded way of deciding their argument, to be sure, but he had never had a problem in using whatever options he had available to win. And he always won. 

Eres stirred, blinking up at him. “Cheater,” she mumbled. 

He chuckled. “I cannot fathom what you mean, Inquisitor.”

She hummed her disbelief, stretching languidly. Solas glanced down at the bandages to make sure they weren’t already soaking through from her movements. Getting her to her clan without significant blood loss was going to prove challenging. He handed her an apple and some bread. It wasn’t exactly the sturdiest of meals, but she had been subsisting on broth the past few days and he would feel more comfortable knowing that she actually had some food in her belly.

“I shall gather your things. Try not to move much until we are ready to disembark.”

She took a bite of the apple and chewed slowly. “Are we planning to steal horses now? If you wouldn’t let me even walk around yesterday, I’m not really seeing how we plan to get to my clan.”

“The infection has somewhat diminished, but yes. It will be a problem. I thought you could use my staff as a crutch until we find alternate transport.”

“Yeah, that could work.”

After she had finished eating he handed over her clothes and she began to struggle into her shirt and coat. The pants proved to be a problem and the boots were an impossibility. Not that she needed them. She had been raised barefoot. He helped her to her feet, sliding an arm around her waist and letting her lean against him for support as she pulled the leather leggings up her good leg. The bad leg gave them both pause. He ended up bringing her over to a crate and carefully slid the pants up over her calf and thigh as she sucked in a pained breath. Once that debacle was over she looked dubiously up at the narrow staircase. 

“I don’t know how we’re going to fit through there like this.”

He bent down before she could protest and scooped her up into his arms. 

“Hey! What-!” she said, squirming in surprise.

“Is this truly an argument you think you can win?” He asked. The word “yes” formed on her lips as her eyes sparked at the challenge, but she winced as her calf brushed his arm.

“I suppose not. Just… if there’s any way for Sera to not see this, take it. I’m not up for any talk about ‘Elvhen glory’ today,” she mumbled the last bit darkly under her breath.

“Elvhen glory?” He asked, as he adjusted his grip to put less pressure on her injured leg. 

“Hmm? Oh. Don’t worry about it.”

He carried her up the stairs and set her down by the mast, where she could lean against it. Solas went back down into the hold to gather up his pack and staff. He didn’t really wish to be parted from it while they traveled, but there would be no traveling at all unless Eres had some form of support. She was light, but he would not be able to carry her for multiple miles.

Up on deck, Eres was talking with the captain. Solas handed his staff over to her and she switched to leaning on it instead of the mast. 

“Now there’s some imagery,” Isabela said with a laugh, as Sera and Cole wandered over to join the group. 

Solas had initially found the woman to be cloying, but small chats with her while Eres was unconscious had improved his opinion of Isabela. She wielded her sexuality like a blade, flourishing it to distract from her actual personality. It showed a sort of cunning that he found admirable and her tale of how she came to be in Kirkwall even further served to raise his estimation of her. 

The ship was moored off the coast of Wycome. The sun poured through small cracks in the overcast sky, sending skitters of light over the peaks of waves all around. He watched Eres staring out at it with an expression of awe. A heavy sort of sadness settled on him. It seemed impossible that she could have had been treated as cattle at any point in her life, let alone the vast majority of it. She deserved to see wonders. 

Isabela had called him “possessive” the night before. She had been more right than she had known. More right than _he_ had known. He had been avoiding thinking about it, but his actions as of two nights before could no longer be ignored now that Eres was alive and awake.

Though this little foray with the Inquisition was merely a means to an end, he was already too attached. Even when he had decided only to take his pleasure from their flirtation and be satisfied with that, there was something about the way she glided her way through every situation thrown at her that fanned the flames of his respect ever brighter. And when she wasn’t in control - when the situation crumbled around her - that was when his instincts overruled any sort of careful line he had drawn in the sand. She was his responsibility in ways she couldn’t even begin to comprehend and that notion had seized hold of him the moment he had seen his magic crackling in her hand. He had tried to ignore it, but now it was worse. It stretched beyond a normal concern for the bearer of his magic, if there was such a thing as normalcy in a situation like this. It stretched beyond anything he could’ve anticipated or warded against.

He had pushed back at the possessiveness his instincts screamed out for - tried to keep himself aloof and distant; the respectable, older man, guiding her through the magic she could never understand. He should have known the first time he had seen the Commander’s ardor directed at her and his insides writhed with anger. He should known when he drew her away from the humans that night on the mountain after Haven and wrapped her up in a web of carefully constructed half-truths shared only between them. He should have realized it each and every time he had flexed his wit and his will against hers in subtle challenge anticipating the result whether he won or lost. But he hadn’t. Hadn’t realized that for each and every way he drew her closer to him, she had been drawing him right back. He hadn’t fully let this little quickling of his distract from his purpose, but he was in danger of it. She was in danger because of it. He cared for her, and it would bring trouble if he allowed it to continue. 

“You have an odd look on your face.”

She was next to him, leaning heavily on his staff and half-smiling up at him. 

It was wrong. It was so, so wrong, that he who held no place in this time should hold onto this age’s redeeming grace. 

“Solas?” She looked worried now. The humor drained from her features.

She offered a path he could not walk down. A place he could not allow her to lead him. 

Eres laid a hand on his arm. 

“Forgive me,” he said, turning his head to look out at the sea. “There is much on my mind.”

“Oh. I imagine the lack of sleep isn’t helping with that.”

It was not. He was exhausted. He needed guidance. He needed to seek Wisdom. He needed the spirit’s steady, unimpassioned view on the situation. 

“No, though it will have no bearing on my performance should we run into trouble.”

He was being cold. The surprise on her face showed him she understood as much. This would not be a day of banter for them. It was better that way. 

“That’s… that’s good. Are you sure you’re ok, though?”

“I am well. We should disembark quickly. It would be best to get the herb to counteract the poison sooner rather than later.”

Her life had almost slipped through his fingers two nights before. She had no idea. Her fever had spiked, sweat shivered down her skin, even as her body shook with violent tremors at an imaginary chill. 

“I think they’re going to lower us down in the rowboats once Isabela gives the word.”

Her skin had been fire. He had dipped into the reservoir of magic that was better left untouched: the little he had regained since the opening of the eluvians. Sent it wandering throughout her body, twisting up through each vein. It hadn’t been enough to completely stop the infection, but it had bought time. He hadn’t had enough to do more, and now the little that he had was gone. For her. For a mortal. 

“Yeah, look, they’re rigging it up right now.”

What use was there in hoarding the power if his anchor was lost? That had been how he’d justified it. Just like he’d justified his actions to himself every step of the way. 

“Solas, I… I might need some help up onto the row boat. I don’t know if I can climb in like this.”

He turned back to her and wordlessly scooped her up once again. She was stiff in his arms. Clearly uncomfortable. He tried to keep from holding her arrow wounds too tightly to his chest. It was difficult depositing her in the boat being held up alongside the deck. He tried to keep from jostling her leg too much, but her wince when he accidentally set her down too roughly was not well hidden, and he was sorry for it. Sera and Cole clambered in after the Inquisitor was settled and Solas climbed in last, grabbing his staff where Eres had left it leaning on the mast. One of Isabela’s crew joined after the passengers were seated. They would want their rowboat returned. 

“Well, it’s been a pleasure as always, Isabela,” Eres said, sounding subdued. 

“As it was for me. If you do see Hawke tell her… well, never mind. She already knows. Good luck with your clan, Inquisitor. Perhaps we’ll cross paths again.”

“Yeah, I hope we do.” 

Isabela’s crew lowered the boat to the waves and the sailor accompanying them started rowing industriously towards the shore. It soon became evident that he was taking them directly to the Wycome harbor. Eres had decided before they had even set out on their journey that they would not be contacting the Duke in any sort of official way. Not until Leliana’s people had found more information about what was happening to the clan. 

“Hey, can’t you drop us off away from the city?” Eres asked, once the sailor’s course became clear. 

“Can’t. Mooring fee,” he grunted. 

“Yeah, but-“

“Cap’n said to pay the fee, so I’m gonna pay the fee. Nobody crosses the Cap’n, and she wants to play it straight.”

Eres lapsed into silence and drew up her hood. Evidently she did not feel that putting Isabela’s ship at risk of arrest was a proper method of repayment for the help they had been given. 

After a length of time spent in silence, aside from Sera singing softly under her breath, their little rowboat bumped up against the dock. The sailer hopped out, wrapping a line around a wooden post and went over to chat with the port official. Sera and Cole climbed up onto the dock and Solas threw his pack and staff up as well. He turned to Eres, holding out a hand.

“Inquisitor.”

She frowned at him. Undoubtably noting his calculated use of her title, rather than her name. Before he could stop her, she stood on her good leg and placed her palms on the dock, pushing herself up. She grimaced in pain, but struggled her way up off the boat, grabbing onto Cole’s hand as he rushed over to help her up. Solas was sure she had irritated the arrow wounds, even if he couldn’t see them under her coat. It was childish. An out-lash at him that served no purpose except to put her life more in danger. Or perhaps she aimed to prove a nonsensical point. It didn’t matter. It had been an unnecessary strain on her damaged body.

He hopped up himself and handed his staff off to her once again without comment, though he had to grind his teeth together to keep from chiding her.

They made to walk into the city, but the pompous little port officially called, “Excuse me! Hey! You can’t go in there until I have your documentation!”

Eres hobbled over to him, wordlessly dropped a pouch of coins on his ledger book, and turned resolutely back towards the gates up to the city. She paused as she passed a notice board.

“Shit…” she murmured quietly. Before he had a chance to see what she was looking at, she ripped something off of the wall and stuffed it into her her coat pocket.

“What was that?” Sera asked, making to dart forward and pull it out of Eres’ pocket. Eres raised a hand warningly, and Sera stopped when she saw Eres’ grim expression.

“Something I probably should’ve let Josephine know about. Come on, let’s get going. I want to get out of the city.” 

She took off again and lead them into the city proper. Cole hovered alongside her, holding his hands out to catch her each time the staff struck a cobblestone at an imperfect angle and she stumbled. To Solas’ surprise, Eres said nothing to discourage the spirit, only sending Cole a mild glare upon his initial approach. 

Before they made it out of the main gate, a man named Rev waylaid them, claiming to be one of the Nightingale’s agents. He drew Eres aside for a few quiet words, and then lead them out to a small paddock with two horses tethered to a post. A small mercy; their journey would’ve been made all the more difficult if they had needed to steal some or walk the rest of the way. Rev marked the clan’s last known position on Eres’ map and bade them farewell. The group mounted their new steeds, leaving Wycome as quickly as they had arrived.

The sun was rising higher in the sky by the time the city walls had faded from sight and the air was heavy with heat. They rode for a time through the scrubby fields and patchy forests.

Out of nowhere, Sera screeched, sending a flock of birds up from a nearby tree. Solas urged his horse forward, drawing alongside the two women. Sera was holding her hand out in front of her face, looking disgusted. It was covered in blood. Eres looked pale and disoriented, lolling forward in her seat. Solas hastily reached out to steady her on the horse, as she looked in danger of falling off. 

“Sera, hold her up,” he ordered and seized hold of the reins. He brought both sets of horses to a stop and jumped down, rushing around in front of the horses to grab hold of Eres’ waist and pull her from the saddle. The Inquisitor put up no resistance, nor did she help. The entire front of her vest and shirt was soaked through with blood. 

He mumbled a string of curses as he laid her on the grass away from the horses. She snorted softly when she heard a few she recognized. It was a wonder she was even conscious at all. 

“ _Ir abelas. Ir isala halani_ ,” she said in a foggy voice. Her pronunciation was terrible, but he took her meaning.

He needed to keep her talking to keep her lucid. Needed to keep it light, following the cadences they had started to develop with each other to keep her engaged.

“I had not realized that you knew full phrases of Elvhen.”

He ripped open her vest, sending buttons scattering away into the grass and tugged up her shirt. So much blood lost. 

“I’m Dalish… s’important to try to learn.”

“Yes. It is. What else can you say?”

He didn’t even take off the bandages, just started pouring more healing magic through the cloth, cursing whoever had invented this poison that prevented wounds from clotting. Her eyes closed. He had to keep her talking.

“Eres. Eres!” He patted roughly at her cheek, trying to wake her up. 

“ _Fenedhis. Fenedhis lasa_ ,” she chuckled with her eyes still closed. “Means wolf penis. Did you know that? And go fuck a wolf. I wonder why they chose a wolf.”

She was delirious once again. He could feel the heat of fever in her skin. He redoubled his efforts, trying to repopulate the blood in her arteries. It had been all he could do aside from slowing the infection over the past few days. 

“Perhaps it comes from the Dread Wolf,” he suggested, not taking his eyes off of the red-stained bandages and his shaking hands.

“You think the Dalish would joke about Fen’Harel’s privates?” Her eyes fluttered open, but had trouble focusing on his face.

“The Dalish have many eccentricities. Would joking about his reproductive organs be so hard to imagine?”

He wasn’t actually sure the phrase had anything to do with him, and didn’t much care, but she was talking and seemed to be paying more attention to the "blasphemy" then he could’ve hoped for with a different topic. 

“A  _scary_ god’s ‘reproductive organs’? Yeah.” She pulled a face. “Fuck, now I can’t get it out of my head.”

“Do you fear the Dread Wolf?” 

Too much of his energy was being drained away as he tried to pull her body back from the brink, and he was grasping for the first thoughts that presented themselves in his mind. He had wondered at her opinion on this particular subject many times, though this had not been how he had imagined the topic would come up.

“I’m laying here, bleeding out on the ground and you’re making jokes about the Dread Wolf’s cock. Creators…” She mumbled.

Her eyes closed again and she didn’t continue speaking, but his magic was working. The blood was not pouring out of her at the same alarming rate. He had to get her to the camp. He picked her up once again and Cole hurried over to hold the horse still. Solas slung Eres on the horse’s back before carefully climbing up behind her. His plan to distance himself would have to wait until she had recovered. There was too much at stake to back away from her now. _Justification,_ a small voice in the back of his mind whispered. 

“Sera, Cole, we must get her to her clan quickly. Keep up if you can, we do not have time to tarry.”

With that, he drove his heels into the horse’s side and took off for a full gallop. Eres’ head tipped back onto his shoulder and he tightened his elbows around her to keep her seated. 

He urged the horse faster, heart beating wildly as he felt her go completely slack. Hopefully the camp was nearby. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted to have Solas examine his feelings about the Inquisitor with this chapter, but I also wanted to get them to the damn Dalish camp. We're close! So close! So I think that's why writing it was such a struggle for me. I'm having trouble speeding along events because part of the reason I started writing this monster is that I wanted to fill in a lot of the gaps and downtime in the game.
> 
> Elvhen:
> 
> Ir abelas - I'm sorry  
> Ir isala halani - I need help  
> [Fenedhis/fenedhis lasa](http://fenxshiral.tumblr.com/post/107566969958/fenedhis-what-does-it-mean) click to read the explanation of it that I was going off of for this chapter
> 
> Thank you Fenxshiral! If you haven't checked out his tumblr yet, Fenxshiral is attempting to make a more complete elvhen language based off of what we know and what they can infer. It's pretty astounding.


	16. Drop 'Em

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the Dalish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohhhhhh MAAAAAAN! 50k words... WHAT? Thank you all for the reads/kudos/bookmarks/comments. I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that each one is as satisfying as eating a warm chocolate chip cookie. I appreciate all y'all that have stopped in to read.
> 
> By the by, I just said it for the first time outloud ever yesterday, but Eres' name is pronounced closer to "Heiress" than it is to "Aries". Just a fun fact. Ok, I'll stop talking now. Read on.

“Flat-ear! You wander far from your cozy city walls.”

Solas wrangled in a sigh at those words. _Dalish._

A hunter stepped out from behind a tree. In the corner of his eyes, Solas could see three more moving, bows drawn. He kept his arm around Eres’ waist, but raised the other in a gesture of surrender. His nostrils flared and he caught the scent of perfumed smoke barely beyond the wall of trees. Rev’s directions had been good, but Solas had not been being observant in his haste to get to the camp. He should’ve proceeded with more caution once he had begun to near the place. 

“ _Nuvenan ma son._ I seek Clan Lavellan. One of your own is in dire need of assistance.”

Solas carefully lowered the hand he held raised to Eres’ head, tilting it back and pulling down her hood. When her face came into view the hunter that had spoken first frowned. 

“So our keeper did send for her.”

One of the others lowered her bow and whispered in an undertone that carried through the silence of the woods.

“Thought she was gone for good. What should we do?”

Perhaps... perhaps Eres had not been particularly forthcoming about the sort of reception she had expected. 

“We are with the Inquisition, requested personally by Keeper Deshanna Istimaethoriel,” he said, dredging up the name from his memories. “We seek to help with the bandit attacks… providing of course that Inquisitor Lavellan lives through the next hour.”

The barbed statement and the use of Eres’ last name seemed to shock the hunters into decision. The leader lowered his bow and beckoned to Solas. “Of course, yes, we will help. Come.”

The other hunters fell into formation around Solas’ horse as they headed into camp. He found it difficult to picture Eres doing the same if she had never joined the Inquisition. Her fighting style was predatory, more of a solitary big cat than anything with pack mentality. Eres had learned her skills alone and was only lately truly mastering how to fight with a group. He was unclear as to how long she had been away from her clan, but those years spent training as what he presumed to be an assassin had clearly been informative for her. No, picturing her as one of the silent four leading him into the camp was not an easy mental image to conjure. 

They lead him past a granite statue of a wolf, sitting faced away from the camp, and all of the hunters glanced at it on their way by. Solas fought down a ridiculous urge to laugh. He was mounted, escorted and flanked by an armored guard and passing a statue in his honor. Time had strange ways of echoing itself that never ceased to surprise him, though it was a cruel joke time played on him today. The tiredness in his mind was beginning to take a fuzzy quality on the edges - as though his head was full of dandelions past their prime. He shook it to try and shake some awareness back to himself. He would need to be sharp in the presence of so many people apparently opposed to his being there. 

He readjusted his grip on Eres and was displeased to note how shallow her breathing felt as her chest rose and fell beneath his arm. If the witherstalk wasn’t in the camp’s stores… No. He would not dare to tempt fate by thinking thoughts like that when they were so close to fixing the problem.

Red aravels and clusters of people surrounding campfires came into view between the trees. Elves on all sides stopped what they were doing and turned to watch as he rode up to the camp. There looked to be nearly 100; an impressive number for a nomadic clan.

One of the hunters drew up to take Eres down from the horse.

“Careful,” Solas snapped, as the Dalish elf tugged hard on her arm. If all of his careful healing over the past few days was undone by the clumsy hunter, the hunter would not live to see moonrise.

Solas jumped down himself and pulled Eres out of the man’s arms. He glowered at Solas, but said nothing. Solas glowered back and was gratified to see the Dalish man take a step away, expression turning wary. It was a comfort to know that he could still make men cower if they displeased him, should the need arise. With any luck, it would be unnecessary today. 

Solas carried Eres through a silent crowd of vallaslin-wearing elves, up through the aravels to where a woman leaning on a staff stood watching with wide eyes and mouth set in a grim line. He had trouble guessing the ages of the people of this time, but the keeper looked to be around Eres’ age, which was to say, rather young to be leading a clan as large as Lavellan. Solas was not sure of Eres’ actual age, but she looked to be about a fourth of the way through her life, which, now that he thought on it, was optimistic in light of her current condition.

“What happened?” She asked, dropping propriety and rushing forward. 

Solas laid Eres down on a patch of grass and the woman fell to her knees alongside the prone Inquisitor. “Poison, combined with infection. She was conscious long enough yesterday to inform me that an herb called witherstalk would work well as an antidote.”

Deshanna snorted in amusement, but it quickly turned into something that sounded more like a sob as she examined Eres further. “Of course she did. Bleeding out on the ground, and she sits up and tells you exactly what you should be doing,” she trailed off, ending her sentence with soft “tch” of disbelief.

She brushed Eres’ hair off of her forehead, before rising to her feet and turning to the clan at large. “Well, you heard him. Witherstalk. Now. Demar, bring some water and set it to boiling on this fire.“ 

Solas shrugged off his pack, and kneeled down next to Eres to begin peeling off her clothes. 

Deshanna turned back and waved a hand at him. “I’ll take care of that, thank you.”

Solas nodded in acquiescence and sat back on the ground. The keeper swept down, pulled off Eres’s outer coat and caught sight of the blood staining through her shirt. Her face drew down in worry as she peeled the red-stained shirt away, showing the saturated bandages. 

“You didn't replace them at all?”

Solas, indignant, answered, “They were replaced this morning. It is the nature of the poison. It has prevented her blood from clotting.” 

“Ah. Shit. She’s been bleeding that much? How is she even still breathing?”

“A spell.”

She glanced over at him as she pulled apart the bandage, re-evaluating her first impression of him. “Good spell. Perhaps you could share it with me while you’re here. Creators know it would be dead useful.”

“Perhaps. If there is time.” 

“So you’re Solas, right? Eres sent me a letter something like four fortnights ago. Months after her last, might I add. You Inquisition people seem to have very little grasp on how much others might care to hear about their friend.” 

“We have had a trying time of late, perhaps it is a matter best discussed when the Inquisitor wakes up.”

“Oh, it will be. I’m going to take it out of her hide - see if that nets me some more letters.”

A little Dalish woman came bustling up with a handful of dried herbs and tossed them into the bubbling kettle over the fire.

Deshanna stirred the water, waiting for the tincture to steep. The silence grew uncomfortable between them. Solas, for his part, was exhausted and more than happy to sit still and give his mind a chance to wander, but Deshanna kept looking over at him as she worked. 

A clang of metal echoed around the clearing, followed by sounds of a scuffle. All of the elves that had been surreptitiously watchinghim swiveled their heads as one to the tree line once again.

“Oi! Get off me!”

More hunters came into sight, bringing Sera along with them. She was being frog-marched along by two of the bigger warriors of the clan. Solas had to assume that Cole had decided to stay invisible for the time being. It was probably for the best. There was no telling how the Dalish would react to a spirit walking in their midst.

The hunters dragged Sera up to where he was seated with Deshanna, who stood, brushing her hands off on her robe.

“And who is this?” She asked.

“I’m with them. Him and the Quizzy. The Inquisition. You know, the ones that are trying to save the world instead of sitting pretty in a forest with a bunch of smelly deer things.”

“Watch your mouth, flat ear,” said the guard on Sera’s right, jerking at her arm. 

She stamped on his foot and tried to wiggle free from her other captor.

Deshanna turned to Solas. “Is she?”

“Yes.” And resisted to urge to add “Unfortunately”.  

“Release her. Go… watch. See if we are to have any other visitors dropping in unannounced.”

The hunters frowned at Deshanna and Sera, but followed her instructions. 

“I’m Cole.” 

The spirit blink into sight, crouching next to Eres and tucking her folded up coat under her head. Deshanna screeched and jumped back, nearly landing in the fire. Apparently the spirit had _not_ decided to stay out of sight.

“Where did you come from?” She demanded. 

“I’m not sure… how to answer? I was at the White Spire and then Haven and now Skyhold and here. Probably the Fade?”

There was a sharp intake of breath from over Solas’ shoulder.

“Demon!” Someone standing nearby shouted, pointing at Cole. Panic rose through the camp, hunters ran forward, drawing weapons. 

Solas hastily said to Deshanna, “He is our companion. He is no demon.”

Deshanna threw up her hands. “Wait! Wait! He is with our guests!”

Someone in the crowd yelled, “You would let a demon into our home?”

“Keeper Verwyn would never have allowed it!”

“Bind it! Now!”

A man stepped forward out of the crowd, holding a staff. “Deshanna, you must. Put the other two with it. That should pacify Udthiar for the time being. At least until…” His jaw worked as he looked down at Eres’ bloody body on the ground, “Until Eres is better.”

A look passed between the two Dalish mages, and the keeper sagged. “I suppose I have to, don’t I?”- She turned back to Sera and Solas -“I am sorry for the lack of hospitality you are about to receive. Tensions run high at the present.”

“What, seriously?” Sera asked.

Solas sighed, unsurprised. This excursion was beginning to fall into the usual patterns he experienced when in Dalish camps. 

“Kynan, don’t bind… it. Just ward it in. If the spirit really is with Eres she’ll have my head if it’s corrupted.”

Surprising. His estimation of Keeper Deshanna shot up a few notches. It was rare for anyone of this time to understand even the barest of hints of how spirits functioned, let alone to protect them. He let himself be parted from his staff and escorted away alongside Sera to the edge of the tree line. Still in sight of where Eres lay, but far from most of the aravels and people. Cole followed behind - none of the elves seemed to want to touch him. Not so long as he moved peaceably.

The man who escorted them, Kynan, said, “Apologies, again,” and drew up a large, circular ward around them, locking it into place with a down sweep of his staff. 

Solas circled the inside perimeter, reaching out with his senses to feel the pulse of the magic. Yes, he would be able to tear it down if there was any trouble. Sera stamped at the ground and plunked down in a huff. 

“I didn’t have to let them see me,” Cole said, “but it’s better like this. They need a leader and the leader needs strength.”

“Careful taking a hand in politics, Cole.”

“Why? It’s like fighting, but with words and words unspoken. I can fight and I can talk…is that not the same thing?” He asked, tilting his head to the side.

“Yes, but as with physical altercations, people can still get hurt along the way.”

“Oh. Is that why Orleans hide behind masks when they do it? Masks to keep the words from sliding in and hitting the parts they are afraid to lay bare?”

“Possibly.”

Sera grunted, “Euuughh. It got us trapped in here? That thing is not right.”

“Solas isn’t a thing, Sera!” Cole admonished and Solas chuckled. 

The Dalish man that had “trapped” them still stood watching the three, looking curious. “So it's not a demon?” He asked.

“No,” said Cole.

“No, said Solas.

“Bleeeeeeergh,” said Sera. 

He looked at Sera in surprise before refocusing on Solas and Cole. “Very well, I will take your word until the spirit proves itself otherwise. Now tell me, what happened to Eres?”

“Ugh. Boring story. It’s like this, right? We ran to the boat, but the boat wasn’t there and then baddies popped up and started trying to kill us. That didn’t go well for them, but then it didn’t go well for the Quizzy when she got an arrow in her face. Shoulder. Whatever. Anyway, then she got her foot all chomped and BANG! ‘Nother arrow. Thought she was deadsies for sure.” Sera casually picked something out of her teeth and flicked it away. It hit the wards with a small sizzle. 

“I… uh. Yes. I think I see,” said the man. “Well,” he turned back to Solas, “You have my gratitude for keeping Eres alive. She is… a very close friend. My name is Kynan, by the way.”

Something deep within Solas growled. The way the gangly mageling standing before him had said those last words had stirred at something deep in the pit of his subconscious. Solas kept his face indifferent, but carefully stored away this particular insight into Eres’ relationship with her clan for later inspection. Or at least, stored it away for even more inspection, as his mind was already running rampant with speculation and newfound distaste for this “Kynan”. 

“I am Solas. Eres has become a dear friend of mine as well. I shall, of course, continue to protect her as long as I am by her side.”

Kynan raised his eyebrows. “I see. Well, again, I am grateful. Though, now that she is home, I expect your services will be less necessary. Deshanna is a skilled healer, as am I. Enjoy your respite. I imagine you must be exhausted from your efforts.”

Solas crossed his arms and replied, “Yes, thank you. I am not so tired that I will not be able to… assist, should your own healing efforts fail to produce the desired effect. Please, do let your keeper know that I would appreciate further updates on Eres’ condition.”

Solas turned away in dismissal, and walked to a tree entrapped in the warded circle and sat down, leaning up against it. Kynan still stood on the outside of the ward, looking slightly stunned. Solas smoothed down his tunic and leaned his head back against the tree, closing his eyes. When he looked again “Kynan” was back over by the keeper and Eres. 

“That right there was the politest pissing contest ever,” Sera said, 

Solas cracked an eye open and looked at her. “Not at all. I merely thought it pertinent to remind him that the Inquisitor has… more claiming her attention than her clan at the present.”

“Yeah, that and that you’re the one planning to slip her one.”

Solas opened both of his eyes and stared at her. “I was implying no such thing!”

“Phwoooooar drop ‘em and rebuild the empire!” Sera grabbed her crotch and wiggled her hips back and forth.

Solas snorted and leaned his head back once again. He would not dignify that statement with a reply. Nor would he lean further into a “pissing contest” with some backwater, talentless Dalish whelp. There was no competition. He could destroy him with barely a flick of his wrist. There was also no competition because Eres’ past romantic entanglements were not supposed to be any of his concern. He should not care about it. He should not have anger surge through his veins when he thought of “Kynan” running his hands over her in ways Solas was not allowed to himself. Nor should he feel like setting the tree he was sitting against on fire when he pictured Eres’ half-lidded eyes and kiss-reddened lips forming another name other than his own. He should also not take such pleasure in the idea of crushing “Kynan’s” wards, striding over to where Eres lay and whisking her away from the incompetent, boring boy, all the while saving her singlehandedly from the brink of death. Those last two thoughts in particular were problematic, if not entirely too satisfying to think on.

The bark prickled at his back through his vest and he shifted around, irritated that even the tree seemed to be trying to annoy him. Perhaps it would be better if he did just set it on fire and had done with that particular fantasy. He had thought to steal a few hours sleep while they waited, but between the damnable tree, “Kynan” and his vantage point of where Deshanna sat before Eres, his mind would not settle. He spent hours staring off towards the makeshift sick bed, elbows resting on his thighs, with his fingers stapled in between. Eventually his exhaustion caught up with him and he let himself slip away to the fade.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm feeling like I should start writing each of my chapter summaries in Sera-talk. When I typed out that summary of what happened to Eres... it... it just felt so right.
> 
> Nuvenan ma son - “I hope you are well.” A formal greeting similar to “Thu ea?” except it is not considered rude to not give a response. from Fenxshiral’s Project Elvhen


	17. Harel'lin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eres tries to get a grasp on what's going on in the camp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Edhis" - dick  
> "Masa" - ass  
> "Pala" - fuck  
> I am 800% sure that I did not use any of these words in quite the right way, but it’s more for ~flavor~ than anything in this chapter  
> Taken from Fenxshiral's Project Elvhen! Go check it out http://archiveofourown.org/works/3553883/chapters/7825850
> 
> Harel'lin- Traitor of blood
> 
> The song is I Am The One from the Origins end credits.

_Heruamin lotirien_  
_Alai uethri maeria_  
_Halurocon yalei nam bahna_  
_Dolin nereba maome_

 _Ame amin_  
_Halai lothi amin_  
_Aloamin Heruamin_

_ Heruamin oh lonai  
Imwe naine beriole  _

_Ame amin_  
_Halai lothi amin_  
_Aloamin Heruamin_

 _Ame amin_  
_Halai lothi amin_  
_Noamin_

 _Ame amin_  
_Halai lothi amin_  
_Noamin Heruamin_

“Mamae?” Eres asked, disoriented by the waving branches filtering starlight down onto her face and the soft, lilting song sliding through the night air. Other lights flickered on the edge of her eyes - dancing flames, she realized. She struggled to remember where she was. Fingers were trailing through her hair and deliciously scratching fingernails along her scalp. It was the best feeling Eres had experienced in a long time. 

Someone snorted in amusement, outside of her eye line and said, “Not quite.”

Eres tried to roll over to look, but a hand clamped down on her shoulder. 

“Hey - whoa. You were half-dead a couple hours ago. Sit still.”

“Shanna?”

“In the flesh.”

Fingernails dug into Eres’ shoulder where the hand was pressed.  “ _Why_ is it that the first time I hear from you in months it involves you dragging your sorry ass back here covered in your own blood?”

“Bad luck?” Eres hazarded, still disoriented. 

Deshanna laughed, but it had a frantic edge to it that immediately made Eres’ insides shrivel with guilt. 

“Bad luck? That’s an understatement. Some flat-ear,” she paused and patted Eres’ hair, “sorry, I know you don’t like that. But some random, bald elf comes riding up to our camp acting like he owns the place and holding your living corpse after months of hearing nothing from you… Gods, Eres! You scared the shit out of me.”

“If it’s any consolation, I scared the shit out of myself too. Do you think I _plan_ these sorts of things?”

“Yes, yes I do. You always do this! You leave and then come back half-dead and seem to think it’s normal - like I’m supposed to just take it in stride.”

Eres sat up and glared at Deshanna.  “You’re the one that sent me away! AND the one that wanted me back!”

Deshanna waved away Eres’ protest with a flick of her wrist.  “Whatever. This ONE time I did. You weren’t supposed to stay away so long.”

“What, is the world supposed to save itself?”

“I don’t see why it has to be _you_ that has to do it!”

Eres held up her hand and called the anchor to life. She had never tried to purposely flare it without a rift nearby. Interesting. She would have to tell Solas that she was starting gain more control over it. The green light crackled out of her hand, feeling warmer than usual. Her whole arm buzzed with the power. Those that were still awake in the camp wandered closer, eyes reflecting the green light and making the camp looks as though it was filled with dozens of large, lime fireflies.

“See this? This is why it has to be me. You think I wanted this? Do you really think I wouldn’t give anything to slip away and let the world sort itself out? I _have_ to, Shanna. This thing can close rifts and the monster that made them in the first place is after me personally. This isn’t something I can walk away from.”

Deshanna stared at her hand for a full minute, saying nothing. Then her eyes welled up and she threw her arms around Eres, burying her face in Eres’ hair.

“ _Edhis_ ,” she mumbled. 

“ _Masa,_ ” Eres replied, drowning in a wave of homecoming nostalgia. How easy it was to fall back into these old patterns of speech with her best friend. 

"Fuck,I missed you.”

“Missed you too, Shanna.”

Eres let the light go out in her hand as she sat hugging Deshanna. 

“Creators, it’s been a mess since you left.”

“What’s been happening? And where are my friends?”

Deshanna pulled back abruptly, looking sheepish.  “Before I tell you… Just uh. I mean, you did bring a demon into _my_ clan. Udthiar’s been pulling even more of his political nonsense ever since we started getting attacked and-“

“Hang on, back up. Where are they? Did you bind Cole?” Eres interrupted quickly.

Worry twinged through Eres’ mind. If Solas hadn’t thought it necessary to bind Cole then he was probably right. She had no idea what would happen if Deshanna had done such a thing, but the idea put a bad taste in her mouth. All of the spirits she had come across that were bound hadn’t been spirits at all - they’d been demons. The way Solas told it, binding the spirits in the first place was what provoked their change. The idea of seeing one of those demonic grins poking out from below Cole’s goofy hat was a terrifying one. Nobody deserved to turn into a monster. She would hate to see the boy-spirit-thing hurt because of her friend.

“No but-“

“Good,” Eres said, breathing out a sigh of relief. “Take me to them then. Did you put them up in my old aravel? Hopefully it was cleaned since I’ve been gone…”

She trailed off watching the guilt fill Deshanna’s face. Eres cocked an eyebrow.  “What did you do?”

“Nothing! Well, sort of. Just… just come with me. That Solas’ staff is over there if you need a crutch.”

“You took his staff?”

Deshanna let out a long-suffering sigh and pulled Eres to her feet.  “Come on.”

Eres hopped over to the staff and used it to prop herself up more comfortably. She was pleased to note that her leg did not throb as much as it had the other day and that her arrow wounds no longer prohibited the movement of her arm. Solas must’ve found the witherstalk. She owed him. That was what, three times… four times he’d saved her life? She had no idea how she was ever to repay a debt like that. 

Deshanna lead her through the camp and Eres waved at a few people sitting around campfires. Far more looked away from her approach, clearly still wary. She sighed and Deshanna turned back looking quizzical. 

“Apparently I’m still the ‘flat-ear’ of the clan.”

“Of course,” Deshanna said, faking an off-hand tone. “Now you’ve also earned the extra-special title of ‘Harel’lin’.”

“Blood traitor? Really?” She asked, exasperated. Her clan had never been able to look past her stint in the shemlen world, but their insults were taking a decidedly nasty turn if they were moving onto “blood traitor”. 

“I tried to tell you how Udthiar’s stirring up trouble again, but oh no, we had to go see the prisoners…”

She slanted a look at Eres, clearly realizing her error in letting that slip. Eres’ temper began to rise again.

“Prisoners? Fenedhis, Shanna!”

Deshanna shushed Eres and Eres attempted to modulate her voice down to something less likely to wake up the camp.

“Prisoners?” She hissed.

Deshanna only beckoned and walked faster. Up ahead Eres saw a glowing circular enclosure. A man leaning on a staff was standing on the outside of it, silhouetted by the light of the wards. As they got closer, Eres saw that it was Kynan and that he was talking through the ward to Cole. 

“Eres! You’re awake!” He turned and smiled at her, moving away from the enclosure and wrapping his arm around her waist, letting her lean on him instead of Solas’ staff. 

“ Kynan! Hey! How are things?”

He squeezed the arm around her in a small half-hug before replying, “Good, good. Aside from the bandit attacks, obviously. I’m assuming Shanna had a chance to tell you about my uncle too.”

“Not yet,” Deshanna grunted in annoyance. “She insisted we come over here first.”

“Had to see how terribly you both were abusing my friends.” 

Eres scanned warded enclosure. Through the magical light she could make out a lump on the ground that she presumed to be Sera, judging by the snores echoing weirdly through the wall of magic. It took her another moment, but she spotted Solas. He was sitting on the ground, elbows resting on his knees and leaning against a tree. At first she thought he was asleep, but the ward light caught his eyes and she saw that he was staring directly at her through the dark. He made no move to come and check on her, only sat and watched, the edges of a frown framing his gaze. She held the eye contact for a moment, before tearing her eyes away and back to her Dalish friends. Kynan’s head was turned towards the inside of the circle as well, when Eres looked back. Kynan’s brow knitted together in a frown and he pulled Eres closer to his side. 

“I can stand on my own, you know?” She said, annoyed. She dug her elbow into his side, but wavered in the second before she fully readjusted her weight to leaning on the staff once again. 

“Yeah, definitely looks like it." He reached out again and placed a much looser grip around her before he turned to Deshanna and said, “I was talking with the spirit. It’s not a demon as far as I can tell.”

“He’s not,” Eres cut in. “He’s… compassion? Or something? I don’t know. He can read minds, which is disturbing and he can make people forget things, which is also disturbing, but he doesn’t seem to do it for anything sinister.”

“Hello!” Cole called from inside the enclosure. “You’re better!”

“Looks like it, kid,” Eres half-shouted back. Shit, she was starting to sound like Varric. 

Kynan said, “Compassion? It would make sense. When I walked up it started to spout off haikus about how I felt about my uncle. Said it wanted to help… it was fascinating.”

His eyes were shining with excitement as he watched Cole readjust the plume of his borrowed hat.

She elbowed him again.  “My spirit isn’t a research project, ok? I need him. He needs to stab things for me.” 

Deshanna looked mildly horrified.  “Stab things? A compassion spirit?”

Eres shrugged.  “I don’t know how it works either, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. I figure he’s compassionate enough to let me know if he’s about to demon-out and go on a killing spree.” 

It had been a long time since Eres had managed to drag such a magnificent look of amused horror out of Deshanna, and she took a moment to bask in the glory. Deshanna had changed in the time Eres had spent away. When she had first come to Clan Lavellan Deshanna had been apprehensive and easily shocked by some of the capers Eres dragged her into. Over the time Eres was away Deshanna had hardened some of that fear into a shield against the political maneuvering of the clan. Eres had been proud when she came back and found her friend so capable of taking situations in stride and not backing down from tough situations. Especially because Eres had been a bit of a mess herself when she returned. She had needed Deshanna’s newfound steadiness and rationality to keep herself sane. Still, she occasionally missed that Vallaslin-less girl that would go white as a sheet whenever Eres suggested joy-riding a halla or painting lewd drawings on Ando’s aravel sails. It felt good to know that she was still in there under Deshanna’s tough Keeper exterior. 

“So…” Eres said once she had had enough of her basking, “will you let them out now?”

Deshanna and Kynan exchanged a look, silently communicating in a way that only old friends could and Deshanna sighed.

“No.”

“What? Come on. This is ridiculous.”

“Eres,” Deshanna began, “Udthiar is ready to Fen’Harel’s Teeth me for the next thing I do wrong. Letting what most of the clan thinks is a demon out would basically be political suicide.”

Kynan added, “It’s gotten bad. The only reason my uncle’s little mutiny hasn’t gained full sway is because I’m not a part of it. His entire plan revolves around me becoming Keeper, but since I haven’t been willing to challenge Shanna he’s had to wait for something to go seriously wrong to justify it. You should’ve heard him earlier when your spirit showed up. Shouting about how Deshanna was welcoming a demon into our midst. He’s getting desperate.”

Eres blew out a breath.  “Shit. Think he’s involved with the bandits?”

“I honestly don’t know, but if he is we need to find out. Gives me an excuse to kick his sorry ass out of here,” Deshanna said darkly.

Eres looked up at Kynan and asked, “Does he honestly think you’d be any less liberal? I don’t understand it.”

“He thinks that if he manages to get Shanna out that I’d have to listen to the more conservative half of the clan so I won't go the same way. Family love is great, isn’t it?”

A twig snapped behind the warded circle and Eres’ eyes flicked to the dark trees. She strained her ears and picked up the sound of slow, booted footsteps moving through the woods.

“We’ve got company,” she said in an undertone, and inclined her chin to the trees. “Now will you drop the war-“

The magic light circling her Inquisition companions vanished and Solas strode forward. Kynan tightened his grip on her waist again. 

“How many?” Solas asked, as he drew to a halt next to Eres, expression painfully neutral.

“Sounds like a lot. I’m not sure of the actual count. They’re moving quietly. Upwards of thirty?"

“You just - my wards!” Kynan sputtered. 

Solas briefly gave him a sardonic smile, but the mask of neutrality slid back into place as he held out a hand to Eres.  “If you’ve alternate means of supporting yourself, I’d have my staff back.” 

Eres could not understand what she had done to make him so standoffish as of late. As far as she knew, she had been capable of nothing more than bleeding and passing out the past few days. They had been fine that night on the boat. It was only once they were preparing to disembark that he had turned cold. She handed over the staff and leaned more heavily on Kynan. The corners of Solas’ mouth turned up in an unpleasant curl. 

It clicked as the first arrow flew into the camp. He thought she was _with_ Kynan. It didn’t explain his behavior before arriving at the camp, but it certainly explained the nasty layering of blankness and disapproval now. She would’ve laughed if they weren’t under attack. 

“Put her in one of the aravels,” Deshanna commanded. She lit up her own staff and sent red sparks showering twenty feet  into the air - the sign of attack. 

“It’s fine. Kynan, go. I can hobble over there myself.”

He looked like he wanted to argue, but humans started pouring out of the woods. He nodded to her and turned, running into the center of the camp to start casting defensive spells on the clan’s provisions and aravels. Deshanna took off after him. 

Over Solas’ shoulder Eres saw Cole waking Sera. Good. Hopefully her friends could help since Eres herself was out of commission. She dragged her eyes back to Solas. His eyes bored into hers.

“You go too. It’s fine. I’ll be fine.”

He swept up to her and wrapped his arm around the spot recently vacated by Kynan.  “Don’t be ridiculous.” 

His staff flared and barriers sprung up around them both, as he lead her forward. They dodged between hunters rushing forward and slipped between rows of aravels as the sounds of battle started in earnest.  

“This one used to be mine,” Eres said, jerking her chin at one of the aravels covered in her mother’s paintwork. “It’ll work.”

Solas shoved open the door and stepped up into it, grabbing Eres under her arms to lift her inside as well. 

“There used to be a lantern over here…” She found it exactly where she had left it and the wick flared to life with dancing blue flame. In the light she was surprised to see that the aravel was completely unchanged from her time before the Inquisition. She plopped herself down onto the bed roll and looked up at Solas. 

“Thank you…“ 

She trailed off as he turned to leave without meeting her gaze. She shot out a hand and caught his, feeling the small callouses formed from years spent gripping a staff. He paused, but did not turn to face her. 

“Solas… I-“

“Inquisitor, I imagine we will speak after the battle. For now, it’d be prudent for me to go out to the fight and help if I can.”

She squeezed his hand tightly once and let go. He was right. This was really not the time. Tomorrow she could try to pick her way through this odd mire of coldness. For now, they were here to save her clan. He needed to go out there and do that while she could not. 

“Fair enough,” she sighed. “Thank you again - for helping them. It means a lot that you’ve come this far with me.” 

He was still not looking at her. 

“I was intrigued by the eluvians. It was not meant to be taken as a sentimental gesture.”

With that, he walked out of the aravel and Eres felt as though she had been slapped in the face. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted Deshanna and Eres to sound like old friends in this chapter, so I was thinking on how my best friend and I chat. Eres and Deshanna sound really similar to eachother in the way they speak because they grew up together and helped raise eachother as they went through difficult times. Deshanna has a quicker temper and will shy back from doing things that outright provoke trouble. Eres doesn't give a fuck unless she knows someone will get hurt as a result of it. Yep. Yeah. /insight.


	18. Irresponsibility

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god I hit 100 kudos! And 2k reads! Whaaaaat? What? Thank you guys!!!

The fight was going on too long. It should have been over ages ago if her previous estimate of attackers was right… or if they were just simple bandits.

Eres sat on the bedroll, back leaning against the wall of the aravel, letting the waves of fury roll off of her and speculating about what each sound outside shaking her aravel could mean. After a time she struggled to her feet and collected up the tinder box where she had left it before the conclave. She snuffed out the veilfire and relit the lantern with regular orange flames.

The fight still raged and Eres still stewed.

Shouts filtered in from the outside, clangs of metal and even a few sounds of shattering ice. That would be Solas, making good on the oh-so-arduous task that was the price of his ticket through an eluvian. She would have waited, well, not peacefully, but with less complaint if Solas had not stirred up the fires of her temper. After weeks, months of tension between them… how could he have said something like that? It was a comment intended to wound, and it had met its mark. 

She lashed out, hitting the wall of the aravel with a fist as hard as she could, relishing the way her skin split over her knuckles - the pain acting as syphon for a small amount of her impotent rage. She hated this. She hated being useless while her friends and family fought around her. She was effectively caged in the small aravel and the sounds of what was happening outside were like people rattling the bars. She wished she had her equipment and coat. Then at least she could sharpen her knives… or armor up and slip out to see what was happening outside. 

Did she really need armor to do that? She was good, maybe even great at staying out of sight. All she would need to do would be to get over to where her stuff was left. It wouldn’t be that hard to lose herself in the chaos of the fight, even with her bad leg. 

She gingerly set her foot down, shifting her weight evenly to both legs. Fiery pain shot up and she lost her breath for a moment. So, not bad. She could work with it. It wasn’t smart to work with it, but she could without passing out. Besides, the daggers she had left outside were one of a kind. She couldn’t let the bandits take them - that was just impractical. 

Eres pulled her hair up into a bun while she continued her stream of internal justifications (she was cold - she needed her coat! She was just hanging around to help if the situation spiraled! Her aravel smelled musty after the months of non-habitation!). Deep down, she knew that she just wanted to do something reckless, but it was much easier to draw on all of the other reasons to launch herself into danger rather than face her own uselessness. She had not traveled all of this way to sit idly by while her home was under attack. 

Eres snuffed out the lantern once again and carefully opened the door. It was chaos outside, people running back and forth as combatants whirled around the aravels. Eres had only seen an attack of this size on her clan once before, but it had been when she was too young to do anything to help. Fighting amongst stacks of supplies, baaa-ing halla and clunky aravels would be interesting, provided her leg stopped aching long enough to drag herself over to her weapons, of course. 

She dropped into a crouch and began to move, skirting between the aravels and staying in the long shadows cast by the firelight. The fighters pressing on all sides took no notice of her as she slipped past, leaning heavily on each aravel to spare her leg. She drew into a narrow alley formed by two and stuck her head out to see if she could make it to where she had woken up earlier, but quickly jerked it back when a fireball went off only scant meters away. Apparently Deshanna was fighting angry. Good. Eres had not yet spotted her companions in the melee, but if she wasn’t seeing them it was highly unlikely they had seen her. 

After the blaze died down she peeked out again. Through the roiling storm of bodies she pinpointed the fire she had been beside and could see her scabbards leaning against a crate. Excellent. There was about 20 meters between where she was hidden and where her equipment lay on the ground, in between were six pairs of combatants going hand to hand against each other. She studied their movements, waiting for the moment when they would each move far enough away for her to make a mad dash to the daggers. 

A hand locked on her shoulder, spinning her around and away from her target.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Solas demanded, towering over where she crouched and looking furious.

Eres glared up at him, embarrassed that he had been able to sneak up on her. The sounds of the battle had hidden his approach, but apparently had not been obliging for her own efforts. 

“What are _you_ doing? Go kill something. After all, you owe me for bringing you to an eluvian.”

His eyes sparked and his grip tightened. “And you, _Da’len_ , owe me for preserving this life that you are now attempting to throw away. Do not be so irresponsible!”

Eres jerked her shoulder free and took off without even responding. 

“Eres!” Solas shouted behind her. 

Condescending prick. Calling her ‘ _da’len_ ’. He didn’t deserve any of her words. Least of all now when there were much bigger concerns then his guilt-tripping issues. She sprinted through the combatants, blinking away tears of pain and trying to keep as much weight as possible on her good leg. Like she didn’t know she was being stupid. She just didn’t care. He thought she was being childish? For defending her clan? He was the one being irresponsible for stopping to tell her off! 

She made it to the daggers and quickly scooped them up, slinging the scabbards on her back. Dimly, through the haze of pain she felt the staticky tingle of a barrier coating her skin. Well, that was nice of _ha'hren,_ she thought savagely, looking around for her coat. It wasn’t where she had left it. She scanned the surrounding area, but could not spot the leather trench. 

“Fuck,” she hissed. It had been made of great bear skin, which would make replacing it a time-consuming and painful task. 

Solas appeared next to her in a blip of blue light. 

“What exactly are you intending? Hopping at an enemy?”

“For someone not into ‘sentimental gestures’, you seem to care an awful lot about my well-being,” Eres spat, calculating her chances of getting away from someone that could step through the fade. They did not look good. Not that she wasn’t going to try it anyway. She took off again and heard Solas say something absolutely filthy behind her. Good. Let him be frustrated. 

She had planned on lobbing stun grenades at the clusters of enemies and then slitting their throats while they were disoriented, but the grenades had been in her coat. Now… Now what? As much as she was loathe to admit it, she was relatively useless without her usual speed or her grenades. Or armor, for that matter. 

She drew out her daggers as she ran and slashed out at two shemlens on either side of her path, aiming low for the cracks in their armor at the backs of their knees. They both sank down in pain. She did not stop to watch, but assumed the hunters fighting them would finish them off. 

Something slammed into her from behind and grabbed her around the waist. 

“Hold on, _Da’len.”_

“Hold onto what?” She asked struggling against his arms. Then the world blurred and flashed with strange blue light and she was standing outside of her aravel once again, Solas still holding her from behind. 

“You can’t be serious,” she snapped, trying to pry his arms away.

“Quite,” he said firmly. “You are far too valuable for ridiculous antics like this. The fight is nearly over. Your keeper is fine and there have been minimal Dalish casualties. There is no reason for you to be acting so irresponsibly with your own well-being.”

There was that word again - so infuriating! True irresponsibility would be sitting idly by while letting the people she had come to protect die on her watch.

“Seems to me it’s more _irresponsible_ for the able-bodied one of us to not be doing his fucking job, _ha'hren.”_

His arms tightened around her waist, drawing her hard back into his chest. She could feel his hot breath on her ear as he hissed, _“_ My job is to defeat Corypheus. To do that, I need you to remain intact. It is in the world’s best interests for you to stop behaving like a petulant child.”

“Fuck the world then, because that is my family!”

The edges of her vision started to blur, but she had been ready for his magic this time around. The anchor flared and she mentally pushed back at the sleep compulsion as she physically struggled out of his arms. She managed to drive it into a hard vignette of darkness in her mind, gritting her teeth in effort, and raised her glowing hand up at him.

“No! Stop!”

Solas looked shocked. Immediately the black haziness disappeared. 

“How did you-“

But Eres had already turned and run back out into the fray, caution completely abandoned. She spotted Deshanna, whirling her staff at a charging warrior. Eres barreled up to them and stabbed out with a dagger before the warrior got close enough to bring down his maul on her friend.

“Eres? What the-“

“I’m fine. Let’s do this! On your left!”

The thrill of the fight sent adrenaline pumping through Eres’ veins and pushed the pain in her body to the back of her mind. Deshanna spared her one more look of concern, but went back to roasting down the intruders. Eres spun off and took down two archers aiming for her friend. She earned herself a cut to the side from one of the archers’ short hunting knives, due to a stumble on her leap, but it was shallow. She went back on the attack without hesitation. A barrier hissed up around her and she turned to see Solas back to fighting the enemy rather than chasing her. About damn time. 

The fight finished with the Dalish as victors after another quarter of an hour, Eres estimated. By the end, her adrenaline was wearing off and her leg ached even when she put no pressure on it. When the last bandit was killed and their prisoners rounded up, Eres sank to the ground where she stood and leaned back on her hands, panting hard. Sweat trickled down her cheek and blood trickled down her side from the knife wound. Fighting without armor had been reckless, but she had not come away much worse for the wear. Probably due to three mages all throwing barriers on her every time one went down - her evasion skills had been far from her usual standards and she could not claim credit for keeping herself alive through the ordeal. 

Deshanna plopped down next to her, breathing hard as well. “Well, that was dumb of you. I told you to stay in the aravel.”

“Yeah, well, you and everyone else. I could help, so I did. Simple as that.”

“Dumb.”

“Probably,” Eres agreed. Kynan wandered over and handed Deshanna a water skin that she drank from gratefully. As she wiped her mouth with her sleeve, Eres spotted Udthiar walking towards them with a group of hunters behind him. 

“Trouble…” She murmured to Deshanna.

“There she is!” He bellowed. “Take her weapons!”

Hunters, people she had trained with as a child, surrounded her and stripped away her daggers. She did not put up a fight as they dragged her to her feet.

Deshanna leapt up and yelled, “What is the meaning of this?” Her voice sliding into her commanding-keeper tones. 

Udthiar stepped forward, holding a piece of paper out to Deshanna’s face. He was a big man, bald, except for the swirling Elgar’nan vallaslin covering his scalp, and he was wearing a look of satisfaction that boded ill for what was to come. 

“This Harel’lin is a danger to the clan! You welcome her into our midst time and time again, despite this!”

He waved the paper again, and Eres realized where her coat had gotten off to - the bastard had taken it and gone through her pockets. Her Inquisition companions drew up behind her and Cole crouched down, laying a hand on her shoulder. Her stomach sank further. She did not want them to see this - to have a confirmation of what they probably already knew or suspected. Especially notDeshanna. It was the poster she had ripped away from the notice board in Wycome and she knew exactly what was on it: There was no name, only the words ‘Wanted for the murder of Lord Elkers - rogue Elf - 30,000 gp reward dead or alive” and a drawing of her before she had received her vallaslin and with much shorter hair. The likeness was a good one, though, and whoever had spotted her had taken careful note of the large scar on her face, and her freckles. Details she would’ve suspected beyond the observational capabilities of whatever scullery maid had seen her from afar. 

“Everything will be ok,” Cole whispered in her ear, “Don’t run. They will forgive you. You were young and scared, lost in a world never meant for you to be a part of it.” 

The words “don’t run”, echoed around in her head as she watched the man’s face light up at Deshanna and Kynan stiffening alongside her when they saw what was on the paper. 

“Your _falon_ is a murderer. Wanted and hunted by the shemlen, possibly even the cause of the attacks aimed at our clan.” Udthiar turned to the clan at large. “Kin, we have long suspected this flat-ear of such treachery since she stumbled back into our midst. I now give you proof! A wanted poster bearing her likeness, without the vallaslin she was so quick to ask for upon her return! Found in her own belongings!” He turned to Eres and sneered down at her. “Kept on her person as a memento of her misdeeds!”

Now that was twisted. She had snatched the poster off the notice board in Wycome, intending to bring it back to Skyhold and have Leliana take care of any others before they came to public attention. 

“Our keeper welcomes demons and murderers into our camp! Her lack of judgement will ruin us all!” He shouted again, and the elves standing behind him bristled, hands tensing around weapons. 

Deshanna quickly stepped over to Kynan and whispered in his ear. Kynan turned to her, anger crackling from his eyes and shook his head. Deshanna widened her own and slapped his arm, shrugging towards the mob in front of them. Kynan blew out a breath and deflated. He walked forward away from Eres and her friends and towards his Udthiar.

“Uncle, we of clan Lavellan hear you, but we will not be so quick to cast out one of our own. Especially not for the crime of killing a shemlen.” Kynan toed one of the dead bodies in front of him, but the mob did not relax their hold on their weapons. 

Cole’s hand patted Eres’ head, trying to keep her calm. She was grateful for it. 

“This dance you have done will no longer be permitted, Kynan. Step forward as our true keeper or be cast out the same as Istimaethoriel.”

Kynan looked back at Deshanna, and Eres wished she had been able to hear what Deshanna had whispered to him moments before. Deshanna gave a small nod and Kynan sighed as he turned back to Udthiar. “I challenge the guidance of our keeper, and seek to be elevated in order to lead our clan away from _vir banal'vhen_.” 

A small cheer went up and Eres’ heart sank. 

“Excellent,” Udthiar smiled at his nephew’s solemn words

Deshanna’s fist clenched and unclenched at her side. 

“For my first act, I would imprison Istimaethoriel, the Harel’lin and her companions. There will be no more death this night, and they fought valiantly to defend against the invaders. The Harel’lin even fighting through her life-threatening injuries for the protection of Lavellan.”

Udthiar’s smile became fixed in place, and Cole’s hand squeezed Eres’ shoulder reassuringly.

Kynan continued, “That effort for the clan shall be rewarded with time to rest before they are tried and judged accordingly. For now, hunters, take them to Ere- the Harel’lin’s former aravel.”

Eres was dragged through the camp and she heard Deshanna and her friends being forced along in the same why. Her friends were far more politically savvy than Eres had given them credit for in the past, and now she knew exactly what Deshanna had asked Kynan to do; asked him to challenge her so that they might all make it out of the situation alive. Smart woman. 

Kynan lead the way and stopped outside the the aravel to let his prisoners be shoved inside. He climbed in after Eres and drew the door shut behind him. Everyone shuffled around, attempting to claim some sort of space as their own in the small landship. Eres found her self in the middle of the floor, back pressed awkwardly against Solas’ bent legs. Solas sighed a huff of annoyance and unfolded his legs on either side of Eres so that she was sitting in between them. She didn’t dare move. She wanted no physical contact with him if it could be avoided - not after the mess their friendship seemed to be in after the past few days and not after what had just been revealed outside. 

“I’m going to ward the door,” Kynan said. He looked pointedly over at Eres sitting in between Solas’ legs and then up at Solas himself. “You can break wards, right? Get out of here - all of you. Take our bandit captive with you to question him. I wish we had had time to do that before all this, but…” He trailed off and his eyes lingered on Deshanna, who sat with her arms folded, leaning against Eres’ bookshelf. 

“Thank you,” Deshanna whispered and Kynan looked as though he wanted to sink through the floor. 

“I’m sorry, Shanna. I’m so sorry, but we’ll fix it. Ar lath ma,” Kynan whispered back. He looked at Solas once again. “You. I don’t like you. I don’t particularly like Eres right now either, but she’s been one of the best friends I’ve ever had. If you hurt her, I will hunt you down.”

Solas’ legs tensed around Eres as those words set in and Kynan exited the aravel. 

Everyone started talking at once except for Eres. 

“Fenedhis, Eres! Why didn’t you tell me!?”

“Her heart wrings itself in pain as she’s cast out once again - never to have a permanent home, always an outsider.”

“Inquisitor… I…”

“You got all green and jealous over nothing! Your face -“ unintelligible giggles followed Sera’s outburst.

They all drew up short in their speeches, looking around at each other in surprise. Eres took that as her cue and blew out a breath. 

“It seems I owe all of you an explanation.” She paused to make sure they weren’t going to start speaking over her again. “This is something I’ve never talked about.”

Deshanna snorted and said, “Obviously.”

“Yeah, I probably deserve that. Let me start by saying that I am not a good person. I haven’t been for a long time.” This was harder for her to say than she had expected. “I am, however, at least a loyal person. I would never have done anything to intentionally harm any of you in this aravel. Including keeping these secrets from you. Shanna, if I had known it’d turn out like this…”

Deshanna waved a hand, silently letting Eres know to continue.

“Right. So. Well, I ran away from my clan because there were some things I couldn’t face and ended up in Ostwick,” she explained haltingly, trying to figure out how to condense the story, while still keeping it complete. She would just have to dive in and start talking, otherwise she didn’t know if she would even be able to get the words out.

“Scariest few days of my life when I first entered the human world. I was starving, and tried to steal some food, but I had picked a Carta-run shop to take from. Creators, I was so stupid back then. Didn’t even know what organized crime was.” She put her palms to her eyes and rubbed hard, determined to get it all out, but finding it hard to meet all of the gazes trained on her. She could feel the warmth of Solas’ chest through the thin shirt covering her back, though she still was not touching him. 

“They took me prisoner instead of turning me over to the city guards, but then Taegin - she was the one running operations - she gave me food and took off my chains. Gave me a place to stay and a bed to sleep in, didn’t ask any questions. She was so… nice. After a few days of just… being helped, she asked if I’d like training. Said they could use someone that wasn’t a dwarf. I agreed because I didn’t know what else I was supposed to do. And she did train me. She made me feel like I was special. Something amazing. After about a year, she told me she loved me. By then I knew what kind of person she was, though. She didn’t love me. She loved the money I could bring in. Probably thought I was exotic for being a Dalish elf,” Eres paused to order her thoughts for the next part. 

“At the time, I didn’t much care, though. I enjoyed the attention - thought she was fun. We got together and shortly after that she asked if I’d like some more challenging work. I think now that she might’ve gone after me romantically to make sure I was really locked into her organization. Either way, it worked, and she started sending me out to kill. The last assassination job is the one I’m wanted for - I killed a lord in his own home and I was seen. I’m not sure how - I was careful. So careful. It was a big job and Taegin had told me he was a taking elves from the alienage for slaves. I don’t even know if that was true or not now, but at the time I wanted him dead. I wanted it to go off without a hitch. I thought it had, until bounty posters started springing up around Ostwick. A week after they went up I was on a burglary job with Taegin and she sold me out - set me up to be caught. I was surrounded by templars and guards.”

“Templars?” Solas asked. Eres jumped. She had gotten so lost in remembering and recounting that she had forgotten he was right behind her.

“Uh, yeah. I was in the circle in Ostwick. Stealing something from the First Enchanter. I was imprisoned for two days before I broke out and ran. Which,” Eres looked up Deshanna, pleading, “is when I came back and asked for my vallaslin. It wasn’t like what Udthiar said at all. I wanted to be Dalish again. I wanted to go back to my old life - back to when I was a different person. A better one. I didn’t get them done as a permanent disguise.”

Deshanna nodded slowly and leaned her head back, closing her eyes. 

Eres waited, fidgeting with anxiety and hoping somebody would say something. Anything. She had never let anyone know the entirety of what had happened, but now Deshanna did. She even knew the parts about what caused her to leave the Dalish in the first place, and she wasn’t saying anything. Eres was terrified her friend would never say anything to her again.

From next to Deshanna, Sera blew out a breath, leaned back and said, “Well… that’s shit, mate.”

And it was. It really really was. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vir banala'vhen - the way of destruction for the people
> 
> I know y'all are chomping at the bit for Solas to trash some Dalish, but bear with me. I've got story nonsense to shove out into the world too


	19. Young

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eres is worried that she's losing her best friend and it's put her in a bad mood while they wait for the camp to fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ey eyyy, 60+k :D :O 
> 
> Lathbora viran (Lath-BORA VEER-ahn): Roughly translated as "the path to a place of lost love," a longing for a thing one can never really know.
> 
> Da’vhen min’viren - "kids nowadays" from Project Elvhen by Fenxshiral!
> 
>  
> 
> Dareth shiral  
> farewell
> 
> 'Ma serannas  
> my thanks

Small wisps of hair curled at the nape of her neck, exposed and vulnerable looking in the lantern-light. He could not tear his eyes from it. She rolled her head back and forth, silently stretching out the muscles and he stared, transfixed by the working of her neck and the small tick of pulse fluttering just below her jawline. She had been sitting ramrod straight for the better part of an hour, body posture announcing her defiance and discomfort with being this close to him after such a moment of naked truth she had shared with all of them. For his part, he was experiencing quite the opposite of her discomfort.

Eres had waited for her disenfranchised keeper friend to reply for a time before sagging in disappointment when it had become clear that the ex-keeper would rather sleep than communicate with her. Her back had brushed his chest then, and she had jerked forward in alarm, having apparently forgotten that he sat near enough to wrap his arms around her if he desired to. And he did. Sitting close to her like this, knowing that he could draw her back and rake his teeth along the small area of skin where her jaw met her neck and whisper some innocuous explanation of his behavior was a mild form of torture. 

To distract himself, he tried to picture a younger version of the elf before him, free of vallaslin and standing over a human noble she had thought to be enslaving her people. He thought of her collecting a bag of gold, hands still covered in blood. No, her hands would’ve been clean. She would not have been so sloppy as to let the blood run down her fingers. It would’ve been a clean kill. Still, the mental image did not conjure up any form of disgust in him, even with the bag of gold being handed over. Killing was a necessity at times, and having heard the context for her misdeeds he could not fault her for doing what needed to be done to survive and to dole out justice where she had perceived its lack.

He had already recognized that she had some form of training as an assassin, but hearing the whole tale had been shocking. Despite the hardship of a childhood stolen, somehow this woman had come out to be more thoughtful and light-hearted than he would’ve believed possible. The edge of darkness in her - the part of her soul that had allowed her to kill without remorse intrigued him as well. He recognized it because it was so much a part of him too. She was a survivor, that he had no doubt of - she had gotten lost in a forest of wicked things and come out on the other side stronger, wiser for it, and perhaps a bit damaged because of it. His little quickling elf had shades of complexity far past what he would’ve believed possible for one who had lived only a small handful of years. 

“How old were you?” He asked quietly, trying not to wake Sera or the disgraced keeper; curiosity spurring his speech past the walls of apathy he had pulled up between them.

She looked over her shoulder at him.

“You’re talking to me now?”

“So it would seem.”

She huffed out a soft noise of anger and turned back to facing front, crossing her arms. He should not have expected anything better. This gap in between them was his own doing. 

He leaned his head back, resting it on the painted wood of the wall, eyes still trained on Eres. Her fingers dug into the tensed muscles of her arms, nails biting small crescents where she gripped as she curled in on herself. The fabric of her shirt pulled up and let a distracting sliver of skin show just above the waistline of her leggings. It was good skin. Smooth and unmarked. He would have expected nothing less - melee fighters that allowed themselves to be hit from behind would not live long enough to have scars there. It would be so easy - too easy to reach out and slide his hand over that warm skin and draw her back into the small world that had started to form between them before he had deferred to his better judgement. A few small words would be all that it took.

He had taken far too much amusement out of their game of cat and mouse earlier. There was something thrilling about a chase, even if the chase was instigated for more practical reasons than amusement. Or rather, impractical, as it had certainly been a mistake on her part to assume she could handle herself in a fight with her injuries still healing. The chase also could’ve ended better. He should not have tried to push the sleep compulsion on her mind when she was in such a haze of worry and anger, though it had been astounding to learn that she could make some small use of the anchor past sealing fade rifts. It should not have been possible. She was no mage and had no basis for even beginning to understand how to use the sort of directed will she had exhibited.

“Seventeen when I left my clan.”

She still sat rigid, but her hands had eased off of her arms, leaving small crescent indentations where her fingernails had bitten into her skin. So young. 

“Ah. And how old are you now?”

She looked back over her should again, incredulous. “Twenty five. Bit of a rude question. How old are you then?”

So incredibly young. He could not even fathom… Her existence was a flicker, a brightened half-moment in terms of his own - gone in a heart beat. How quickly she would slip away, even if she lived the entirety of her promised time.

“Oh come on, you can’t be _that_ old, _Ha'hren._ ”

Apparently his use of ‘da’len’ earlier had struck a nerve - the ‘ha'hren’ she had just spat out was shot full of vitriol. What was an appropriate amount of years to answer? He could not think… 

“Older than you,” he said, regretting having asked her in the first place.

She snorted and turned away. The silence loomed once more and he tried to focus on puzzling out how she had been able to activate the anchor earlier.

After a handful of minutes Eres said, “Jealous, huh?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Sera said you were jealous.”

“I do not know to what you are referring, Inquisitor.”

“Oh? My mistake, then,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “I must’ve just imagined you glaring at Kynan every time he’s gotten within five paces of me.” She tapped her chin in an exaggerated manner, but Solas could hear the melancholy hidden under her light words. She was confused, frustrated by his behavior and added to that, she had just laid bare a dark chapter of her life for the first time. He recognized it for what it was: she wanted to shift the attention away from her own vulnerability and she sought for a sign that someone still cared about her while she stood on the precipice of losing her dearest friend. Childish, but unsurprising. Regardless, it was not something he would play into, even if his lapses in judgement had already allowed this aspect of his behavior to even come up for debate. 

Eres continued, “Come to think of it, Kynan must’ve been mistaken as well, otherwise why would he threaten you?”

“Are keepers and their firsts allowed to be involved romantically? I was under the impression that the Dalish had strict rules of conduct surrounding that relationship,” he deflected. 

Eres glanced back at him, raising a brow and he knew his diversion had not gone unnoticed. “You’re right; they’re not. Shanna and Kynan have kept it a secret for years.” 

“Not an easy feat, I would imagine, in a such a small community.”

“Not as hard as you would think. People see what they want to see. Always. It’s why lying is so easy - most people would rather not have to deal with the truth.”

Solas did not know how to respond to that, but he had the impression that Eres was already mentally far away from where she had left the thread of their conversation. He settled back again, relieved that she did not seem to want to continue digging into his attitude towards the first of the clan. She looked off at nothing for a time, chin raised and unmoving, head silhouetted by the orange flame of the lantern.

“Have you ever been in love, Solas?” 

He was caught completely off guard. Her words were not harsh or even really inquiring. She was musing to herself and he was disinclined to deflect the question when she asked in such a way.

“I… have not.” He had loved a place; loved a people, but that was not what she was asking to know, and it was not the same thing. No, he had never found anyone that he could lose himself in. Never found anyone that consumed his thoughts and pulled him into their own story and diverted his attention from his own. He had never really looked. 

Before the war he had never felt the necessity of love; he had been too busy being young, wild and caught up in his own cleverness. Later, after years spent in the fade watching and vicariously feeling what it was like to have that sort of synchronicity of the soul with another person he had been left feeling empty and alone with the knowledge that he would never have something like that for himself. He did not deserve it. _Lathbora viran_ , he thought dully. That was what he experienced whenever he thought of love: a longing for a thing one can never truly know. 

“I thought she loved me, you know. Taegin. I told all of you and I still tell myself that I knew all along what kind of person she was, but it’s not the truth. At the time she was everything. I just wanted to make her happy. Is it really love if the other person doesn’t return it?” She wrapped her arms around her chest once more, as though trying to hold back the regret threatening to spill into her carefully quiet tone.

“I don’t miss her. It’s not that. Sometimes I feel like I was cheated out of experiencing how it’s supposed to feel when it’s real. I came back to the clan to find Deshanna and Kynan had gotten close. They were scared to tell me at first because I had slept with Kynan before I left, but it was so obvious that they just fit,” She sighed and gripped her arms tighter around herself before continuing, “I look at them and I look back at what I had with Taegin and it can’t have been love. Love shouldn’t be a cage - shouldn’t be used to trap someone. I don’t know if I’ll ever find something like what they have. I don’t know if I deserve it.

“Ah, sorry,” she added, distractedly running a hand over her hair. “You don’t want to hear this from me.”

He reached out and slid his hand over the small of her back where the naked skin had taunted him earlier. She jumped, and he paused, but she did not protest. He continued, moving slowly up and around her hip, fingers tracing over her side and settling on her waist. She leaned back, nestling into his chest and he circled his other arm around her, letting his chin rest on her head. They didn’t speak, but it did not seem necessary. 

The candle burned lower inside the lantern, small drips of wax trickling down the side in slow trails.

After a time Eres stopped brushing her fingers in circles over his arm and said, “It’s probably getting to be time to go.”

From the corner of the aravel Cole added, “Yes, I didn’t want to interrupt, but it would be best if we leave. Most of the people are in the fade.”

Of course the spirit did not sleep. He had been a witness to the whole thing, but had surprisingly remained silent throughout. Solas supposed that Eres had already been forthcoming enough with her emotions that Compassion hadn’t needed to draw them out for her.

It had not been wise to give into the urge to hold her, but he could not bring himself to regret it. It would’ve felt unnatural to have done anything else when she sounded so lost and spoke of such weighty things. She sat up and some of the emptiness he had lived with and ignored pressed its way back to the forefront of his mind, cold and lonely. He likely would not have another chance to be close to her again and he was not quite ready to let her go. 

He reached out again and wrapped his arms around her shoulders and whispered, “I’m sorry.” Letting his breath skitter over her ear. And he was sorry. Sorry for not being able to fall into a new story with her and for giving her any impression to the contrary. He was selfish and this small contact of minds and bodies hadn’t been something he could have resisted, even if it would’ve been kinder to stay away. 

She closed her eyes and leaned back into the embrace for a moment before sighing and sitting forward, pushing herself all the way to her feet.

“If you need to go back to ignoring me, it’s fine. I don’t understand it or you, for that matter, but it’s fine. But don’t think I will tolerate you calling me ‘da’len’ again,” she said, trying to inject some lightness into her tone.

He smiled to himself as he pushed up to his feet as well. 

They roused the others, Deshanna glaring at Eres, and divvied up the tasks to make good their escape. Deshanna and Sera would go and steal the bandit prisoner Kynan had mentioned and Cole would be wiping the memories of the guards watching over him. Eres and Solas were to get their weapons back, which everyone assumed would be kept in Udthiar’s personal aravel. The ex-keeper thought it unlikely that the Dalish patrol arrangements would’ve changed in the time between their arrest and that they were about to do. Hopefully the new keeper had been competent enough to prevent that at least from happening. It had not slipped Solas’ notice that Eres had mentioned sleeping with the man - boy - while discussing more philosophical matters. He would keep a tighter rein on his baser instincts now that he knew the two dalish mages were together, but that did not mean he would have to be entirely pleasant to “Kynan”. 

Solas directed a hand at the door and felt a satisfying snap in the air pressure as the ward dissolved under his magic. He turned the latch, but found it to be locked. 

Eres stepped up and quickly opened it murmuring, “Just like old times” to Deshanna, who rolled her eyes, but did not reply. 

Eres slipped out first, wincing as she landed on her bad leg. He had nearly forgotten that she was still injured in the wake of all that had come to light. He followed her out and sent a tendril of healing magic at her leg and she groaned softly at the relief, which was a truly intriguing sound. She tested her weight on it again and seemed to deem it improved because she shrugged away from the arm he tried to wrap around her waist to hold her up. She gestured with her head to get moving and took off under her own power. 

The plan was for them to steal into Udthiar’s aravel and for Solas to enchant him asleep to make doubly sure that he would not interfere with their mission. Solas had nearly suggested just killing him for simplicity’s sake, but had felt that it might come across as tasteless considering what had gotten them into this mess in the first place. 

They wove through patches of shadow and up through the aravels, Eres shooting out a hand once to hold him back as he nearly stepped out in front of a hunter prowling past. They continued onto the area where Deshanna had said Udthiar’s aravel should be and Eres stopped, craning her head around to try and spot it. 

A window shutter swung open just above where they crouched and a gruff voice said, “Knew you’d get out, Da’len. Well, get in here.”

Solas nearly cracked his head on the shutter in surprise as he looked up to see an old man with impressively large eyebrows leaning out and looking down at them. 

“Ando?” Eres squeaked in alarm. Squeaking was not something Solas would have _ever_ expected from her and her hands flew to her mouth as she realized what she had just done. Apparently squeaking was not something she expected from herself either. 

“That’s Huntsmaster to you. Show some respect for your elders. Creators… _Da’vhen min’viren_ ,” he grumbled. “Now do you want your effects or are you planning to go and do something damned stupid?”

“Yes, sorry, Huntsmaster,” Eres mumbled, bowing her head and sounding for all the world like a scolded child. Solas was incredulous. This was the woman that fought him _tooth and nail_ on a fairly regular basis lately and here she was genuflecting to this strange old man. 

“You trust him?” Solas asked, amused despite the urgency of their situation. 

Eres widened her eyes and elbowed him in the ribs, but Ando cut in with, “And what kind of question is that? This staff yours, young man? Howsabout I go ahead and snap it over my knee for your cheek. See then if you decide to believe I have your things.” He stuck Solas’ staff out of the open window and wiggled it around so that the beads hung from leather strips at the grip clacked in the quiet night.

“Ah, I apologize, I did not intend any disrespect, Ando.”

“ _Huntsmaster_ Ando,” he corrected, pulling the staff back inside. “And see that you don’t forget it. Now get moving, Da’len, or are you and your young man going to sit on your arses until Fen’Harel comes to bite them off?”

“N-no, Huntsmaster,” Eres said quickly, springing fully upright and pulling herself up through the window. 

 _Until Fen’harel…?_ Solas shook his head, bemused, before following Eres up and into an aravel that practically assaulted the eyes with its dedication to Andruil. Shrines surrounded the interior, rabbit bones hung from the ceiling, clinking together in the wake of the absolutely tiny man. Swirling paintings of Andruil’s vallaslin matching the ones on his wrinkled face adorned every wall and a thick fog of incense made the air barely breathable. It was overwhelming. The sheer amount of misguided worship this huntsmaster sent out into the void was astounding. Now was not the time to ruminate on things he could not change, however. They still had to make their escape. 

“I figured you’d get out. Never seen an aravel that could manage to keep you inside when you were meant to be being punished,” Ando continued, eyebrows waggling madly in time with his speech. “Your new keeper boy, he managed to persuade everyone that I could watch over your things. Said I was to stockpile them with our other weapons if you didn’t show up. Knew you would, though, like I said.”

“If… if you don’t mind my asking, Huntsmaster, why are you helping us? I’d have thought you’d be all for the traditionalist sect,” Eres asked as she accepted Sera’s bow. 

He spat out a harsh laugh and replied, “Feh! In my day, traditional meant having some respect for the Dalish way of life - not overthrowing a keeper for a power grab. Verwyn thought that little Deshanna would be best and Verwyn usually knew what she was talking about.” 

“A wise view,” Solas interjected, feeling that he should possibly try to show a little respect to the hunter that Eres had said trained her as a child.

“Well I should hope so, Flat Ear. Don’t seem to recall asking a bare-faced whelp like you for your opinion, though.”

Solas stared at the fierce little man glaring up at him.

“Huntsmaster-“ Eres tried to admonish, but was cut off by Ando again, who was holding up Eres’ daggers with a look of distaste. 

“Who’s are these then? Not yours, surely. Thought you’d at least have gotten the hang of a bow by now. Our Andruil would’ve laughed herself silly if you tried to run at her with a dagger when she could’ve shot you from fifty paces back. Damned useless, these things.”

Solas was beginning to feel he had gotten a grasp on just how little Eres had been exaggerating Ando’s general crotchetiness when they had briefly spoken of him before the start of this mission. Eres took the daggers and slung the scabbards over her back, not answering Ando and Solas grabbed up his staff and Deshanna’s from where they lay in the corner.

“Well, uh, ma serannas, Huntsmaster. Dareth shiral.” 

Solas climbed back out of the window carefully and Eres followed suit. A third set of feet hit the ground behind them as they turned to head to the agreed upon meeting place in the woods. Solas looked back and saw that Ando had followed them out through the window, clutching a bow taller than his entire body. 

“Slow down, Da’len, some of us don’t make a living climbing out of windows all day.”

Solas turned to Eres and raised a brow. She looked at him, mouth open, and shrugged.

“Um, Huntsmaster, you don’t have to-“

“Feh! I was off killing shems before your mother even stumbled her first steps. If someone’s going after our clan, I’m not about to sit by and watch a little shit-stain like Udthiar try to hold it all together while we get ripped a new one every night.”

Eres apparently had nothing to say to that and made an odd head jerk of assent before heading off into the woods. Shortly in, they found Sera literally sitting on the bandit’s back while Deshanna paced nervously in circles with Cole tracing her steps. 

“You made it!” Deshanna caught sight of their newest guest and cocked her head to the side. “Aaand you brought Ando?”

“ _Huntsmaster_ Ando. Fen’Harel’s saggy left bollock! What does it take to get a bit of respect around here?”

Solas honestly could not decide whether to be angry, embarrassed or to laugh at the wizened man’s creative verbal uses for his private parts, but settled on amused for the time being. No one had ever dared to say something like that in his presence before and it was such a bizarre rarity spoken by such a bizarre man that he could not help being privately delighted by it.

“Um, right. Sorry, Huntsmaster,” Deshanna said, looking abashed. She turned back to Eres and Solas.

“Your spirit says that this bandit,” Deshanna gave the offending man under Sera a kick before continuing, “has been feeling guilty about putting something in the water in Wycome. Useful, that mind reading thing he does.”

“Useful less often than you would think,” Eres grumbled. 

“Twisted, tainting red in the water. Like blood made crystalline. The baker won’t look at me anymore. He used to hand out fresh buns to the elven children, but now looks at their knife ears with a knife in hand. What have I done?”

“Right, yeah, that’s what he said earlier too. As near as I can figure it means that there’s something poisoning the wells in Wycome,” Deshanna said, shrugging, but looking worried.

Eres nodded.

“Sounds about right. We should move. I want to get to Wycome by daybreak. We can deal with what’s happening with the wells once we’re clear of the clan’s reach.”

The group muttered their general agreement and they departed, leaving the bandit captive bound just outside the edges of the camp. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I absolutely love cranky old people characters. Ando? He's for me. Also, it's interesting for me to think about how someone as old as Solas would react to someone who's "old", but still younger than him by several millennia. Especially a dalish someone. He thinks the Dalish are ignorant and pretty much the worst, but I think someone who takes all of those stereotypes to the next level would end up just being funny to him because it's so ridiculous.
> 
>    
> Also, as far as plot goes, hopefully I've addressed the disparity between Solas' reaction to Eres killing people for money and his reaction to Blackwall enough for now, though if I do write the whole damn game I'll be touching on it again. Pinky swear.


	20. Superstition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ask and ye shall receive, dear readers. 
> 
> (some of the time, not always - I feel like I should probably throw that disclaimer out there haha)

The journey through the forest was fast, but rough due the densely covered terrain and the lack of light.

 Partway through Eres had to ask Solas for his staff again, which prompted the little huntsmaster into giving her a lecture on how she “wouldn’t need to hold onto a mage’s stick if she went back to using proper Dalish weapons.” That had sent Sera on a giggling fit for the better part of a quarter hour. In addition to handing over the staff, Solas had suggested they stop to camp, citing that they all were worse for the wear with the patchy sleep and that they would need to bolster their water supplies before heading into the city if the wells were indeed poisoned. Eres had looked like she wanted to argue, but her protests died as she studied at his face. He must have begun to look as tired as he felt from the days of bad sleep.

Pity he wouldn’t be sleeping even now. 

He had spent the walk thinking of all that had happened and all that they were angling to make happen and certain things had begun to stick out to him. 

First, they needed to get the wanted poster back from Udthiar, in case he was cast out and decided to take revenge by defaming Eres to the authorities of the Free Marches cities. Letting them know who their anonymous “rogue elf” had become would cause an incredible amount of damage to the Inquisition, which was unacceptable.

Second, for Eres’ peace of mind her friend would need to be reinstated as keeper, or at least accepted back into the clan in some capacity. For that to happen, not only would Udthiar need to be ousted, but the political opinion of a large chunk of the clan would need to be shifted away from him as well. Obviously not as important, but it would be beneficial to Eres’ focus and well-being. 

Solas had a few ideas about how to solve both of the problems, but there was one that had continued to pop up each time he tried to think of less-underhanded solutions... But then, underhanded solutions had served him well in the past, and his knowledge of Dalish politics was not exactly full enough to know how to manipulate the inner workings in such a short amount of time. Therefore, he would need to play into other aspects of what he knew about the Dalish, and the Dalish were nothing if not superstitious.

When Eres and the others settled in to cook the rabbits Huntsmaster Ando had brought back, cackling, after a few minutes of hunting, Solas murmured a handful of words about needing some privacy for a while and slipped away into the woods. He left his pack and staff behind, and hoped that Eres would take it as a sign that he intended to return before too long. 

Solas walked farther and farther, circling back in the direction of the clan. Once he was far enough from their own little makeshift camp, he stripped down, folding his clothes in a neat pile at the base of a fallen tree. He had not done this since the night they had fled Haven, and excited anticipation curled around in his gut; he missed the feel of sinewy strength and silent feet that had given him his original, insulting namesake. He fingered the jawbone necklace resting on his naked torso. He would be loathe to lose it, should someone find his things, but there was no help for it and pulled it off over his head, dropping it down as well.

Solas let his mind still and focused inwards, searching for the dark hair and red eyes hidden away in the distant corners of his consciousness. The darkness rose swiftly. Without hesitation he let his elvhen form slip away. 

He drew to four feet. Sounds echoed out around him. Halla in the distance. Far. Not too far. Trees rustling. Eres talking to the Dalish mage. Good. He did not like her pain. A rabbit twenty meters to his right. Smells assaulted his nose, and he breathed in slowly, trying to parse the different scents. He would’ve enjoyed prowling these woods, but there was no time. Not tonight. It was nearly dawn and the crickets were starting to quiet their sad, midnight songs. 

He took off, running silently, easily through the underbrush that had tripped and torn at him earlier; delighting in the sense of freedom and wind that washed over him as careful feet propelled him forward faster than he could ever hope to run as a man. Fire and woodsmoke and halla scented the breeze in the direction he needed to go, and he let the textured layers of the aroma fill his mind with images. It was one of his favorite things about shifting - there was so much of the world that could not adequately be experienced stuck as they were in just the one shape.

Solas regretted that he had not made his shapeshifting ability known earlier on when he had first joined the Inquisition. It had been something he thought would’ve drawn too much attention to his quiet hedge mage disguise at the time, though now that he knew the others of the Inquisition better, he realized he likely could’ve gotten away with it. He could take many shapes after millennia of practice, wolf was the one that felt most at home to him and had been the one he learned first. The Dread Wolf had come later. He could take the normal form of a wolf, but he embraced his namesake for tonight. Dark fur, red eyes and nearly double the size of any natural wolf - he aimed to stir up a little fear tonight. To test the true extent of the Dalish's superstitions about him. 

That thought made him slow. Did he truly want to feed even more into the fears and inaccuracies? There was a chance, however remote, that he would need the Dalish for his plan, and what would Eres think upon hearing that the Dread Wolf paid her clan a visit? Confirming him to be the monster she had been raised to fear? He pictured the look of her being dragged away, the hunters pulling at her damaged shoulder and trailing her bad leg into captivity for a crime that had no effect on them. He wanted them scared. He wanted them to regret the harm they had done to her and those she held dear. He wanted them to have some respect for things their legends had forgotten through time.

Huffing out a breath, he picked up his pace again. It did not matter. This was the path he had chosen to follow. If he was already a monster in their eyes, he might as well gain some side benefits from that label. He needed Eres operating at her best capacity, not distracted by the loss of her family. He needed the anchor to survive what was to come. 

He drew up to the edge of the camp, scaring a halla into bleating a ridiculous honk. His hackles raised and he growled at it, letting his teeth show. The halla took off running into the woods, and Solas had to fight down the instinct to chase down the easy prey. Perhaps if this little escapade took less time than he thought it would. 

He settled on his haunches, watching the quiet, deserted clearing, ears twitching as he tracked the steps of the sentries set patrolling. He raised his nose and drew in a deep breath, letting his mouth hang open to capture further scents and tastes on the air. Underneath the stench of blood drying and festering into the ground and the ever-present woodsmoke he found it: the smell of her clinging to the stolen coat, hopefully still in Udthiar’s aravel. She smelled wonderful when he was shifted. He remembered tracking her across the mountains outside of Haven. Even then he had been entranced by the warm, heady scent of her, though it had been diminished by the blowing wind and freezing snow. Pity it was barely detectable while he walked the world as a man. 

He stalked through the aravels, following his nose to the one where he smelled the blend of leather and Eres.

Unwarded. Foolish. While the young Dalish boy’s wards were nothing to him in his true form, they would’ve soured Solas' plans for tonight... Or at least slowed them.

He prowled to the door, nudging it to be doubly sure that it was locked. Then, steeling himself, he leapt at it, letting the weight of his body jar the door off its hinges and inwards to the darkened aravel. He landed hard amidst the splintered wood, turning to growl at the man sitting bolt upright on the bedroll. The petrified man's eyes reflected the dying candlelight and were absolutely filled to the brim with fear.

Solas carefully moved inwards and to the side, leaving the escape route to the door open, wanting the man to run. He advanced, one paw at a time, lowering his head and baring his teeth. The man _screeched_ and shot up out of his bedroll, running for out the open door. Solas dropped the snarl and hacked out a laugh once Udthiar had disappeared out into the night. _Screeching_. He hadn’t made anyone do that in too long. He pawed over to the bundle of leather on the ground and picked it up with his mouth, looking around the room for the bounty poster. It was on a desk. He had to put his two front legs up on it and snap at it with the coat in his mouth. Finally he got them both, and slunk out of the aravel to the sounds of shouting starting to stir up in the camp. He dashed to the edge of the forest and deposited the two past the tree line, out of sight, then quickly looped the camp, heading for the statue in his "honor". 

Sounds of people waking and banging wooden doors echoed around the clearing. A full panic was starting. Good. 

He sat down at the rear of the statue, facing into the camp where the statue was facing out.

They came in a slow trickle, each Dalish man and woman walking forwards, terrified and entranced by the sight of him; the new keeper boy being pushed to the front. It was, after all, a keeper’s job to protect the clan from Fen’Harel. 

“Fen’Harel?” He asked in a small voice. 

Solas let his teeth show, but did not move from his seat. 

“Do something!” Udthiar demanded from behind Kynan.

Solas growled. He stood and prowled forward, keeping his eyes fixed on Udthiar cowering behind the keeper. The keeper raised his staff, but seemed to change his mind partway through the gesture when Solas' gaze flicked to him. He took a step back and bumped into his uncle. The rest of the crowd peeled away, backing slowly into the clearing, fighting the urge to run. The air was thick with fear. One sudden move and they all would scatter like a herd of halla, each hoping that their feet would guide them to safety faster than their friends’. How fragile the bindings of kinship were when faced with the possibility of death. 

The advancing wolf staring him down proved to be too much for Udthiar, who wheeled and sprinted away into the camp. Solas took off like a flash after him. Before the man had gone more than a few meters, Solas clamped his teeth around the man’s calf, ripping into the flesh. It tasted foul, and Solas had no desire to further mangle the man. His point was made. People were running scared, screaming in the night. He spat out the blood and muscle, turning once more to give a sweeping look around the Dalish the camp, feeling the blood drip down into the fur of his neck and letting those who had stayed still get a good look at him. Then he turned and slowly padded out into the night. Let their superstitions read into that one. 

Once out of sight, he shifted into a smaller wolf and went back to where he had left Eres’ coat. He did not want to be seen on the off-chance that they came out looking for him. He tried to wipe his fur off on a patch of grass before picking up the coat, but there was only so much that could be done. Gingerly, he gathered the leather and paper in his mouth and set off once again into the woods, following the scent of his own path on the way there.  

He shifted back once he had reached where he had stashed his clothing, and took a minute to rinse himself off in the stream nearby before shrugging back into the garb, listening to the sounds of the animals moving in the night and the snoring echoing back from his group’s own campsite. His senses were still heightened - left over from the shift. They always stayed as such for a day or two after he became the wolf. Back in his youth he had made sure to shift nearly every day in order to keep the keen senses of smell and hearing elevated above the less-gifted people. Sadly, it wasn’t an option while he was with the Inquisition. 

Dawn was beginning to rise in the sky, but the sun had not yet broken the tree line when he strolled back into camp. Solas made sure that they were all asleep and that Hunstmaster Ando, who was keeping guard, was facing the other way when he stowed the coat and the poster in his pack. He would’ve liked to give Eres her armor back, but it would be a challenge to explain away how he had come to find it. Solas unrolled his bedroll and immediately settled down and dropped into sleep

The dawn came too fast

“‘Morning,” Deshanna said from across the small campfire. “You were out hard. Eres said not to wake you.”

“Where is she?” He asked, sitting up and looking around. 

“They all went off to fill some water skins.”

“Ah.”

“Rabbit?” Deshanna asked, gesturing at the food roasting over the small campfire.

“Please.”

Eres, Sera, Cole and Huntsmaster Ando all came back just as he finished off the greasy meat. He was ravenous after his time spent as the wolf.

“You were gone a long time last night,” Eres said, dropping an armful of water skins.

“I had need of some quiet to meditate,” he said with a shrug. 

“Instead of sleep?”

“Yes, sometimes it is better to center oneself when there will not be enough sleep to be had either way.” Which was, in a way, true. Sadly, he hadn’t actually done it. 

“How is your leg?” he asked, taking note that she had made it through the woods without the help of a walking stick. 

“Better, I think. It barely hurts when I walk on it, which is a nice change of pace. Deshanna healed it a bit more this morning. I was getting really tired of hobbling everywhere.”

“Good.”

They packed up and headed out, reaching Wycome after a short march. It was decided that Eres, Deshanna and Huntsmaster Ando should stay in the alienage, as they looked too Dalish to be unnoticed in the city proper. Heads had already been turning on their way in, and Solas had worried that Eres in particular might be recognized if there were more of those wanted posters tacked up around the city. She had no hood to hide under this time.

Ando settled in under the Vhenadahl tree and berated any of the city elves that wandered too near for “living caged by the fucking shems” while Eres and Deshanna looked on in mixed horror and disbelief at him from a distance. Solas smiled to himself as he left for the alienage gates. The old man was nothing if not true to his nature. 

He, Sera and Cole split up to go and look for agents of the Inquisition. There were supposed to be three somewhere in the city, but privately, Solas thought it unlikely they would be able to find any of the Nightingale’s people if they did not want to be found. His suspicions proved correct when, after hours of strolling the place, he had turned up nothing. He headed back to the alienage when the sun was beginning to cast longer shadows on the ground and lights were coming on in the houses. 

The three that had stayed in the alienage were not sitting in the square when he arrived back. Instead, a human leaned up from a dark corner and came over to him.

“Solas?” she asked.

Warily, he replied, “Yes.”

“Come with me. I’ll take you to the Inquisitor. I work for the Nightingale. We heard rumors of a handful of Dalish entering the city and found the Inquisitor here earlier today. We set up shop over here.”

He nodded, and followed the agent into one of the buildings that appeared to be a deserted warehouse. Everyone, including Sera and Cole were sitting back in the corner of a room and looking grim. Apparently he was late to the meeting. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> post-trespasser not: I mean... he could still be a shapeshifter, right? Right? Magic!


	21. Wycome

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of doublespeak in this chapter, awriiiight.
> 
> Also, hello 3k views! Craziness! Thanks everyone still reading. Y'all are great <3

“But if only the wells in the human part of the city were contaminated that means -“

Shouts echoed in from outside. Of course they did. 

Eres sighed and finished, “that the humans will think the elves are responsible.” 

When was the last time she had been anywhere without being attacked? Surely it couldn’t have been since before the conclave.

The shouts grew louder.

No rest for the wicked, apparently.

There was no time to formulate a plan - not if they wanted to stop the entire alienage from being purged. She gave her crew a flat order of “if they’re attacking an unnarmed elf, kill them”. 

All three of Leliana’s agents had spent the time they’d been in the city digging for information. They had heard whispers of a red “purifying” crystal being installed by the order of the Duke in wells the whole city over, though focusing on the wealthier sections first. There was no cure for red lyrium poisoning as far as Eres knew, which made it a kill or be killed situation. 

She flexed her fingers around her daggers as she waited for everyone to collect their gear, mentally preparing for the destruction that she was about to cause. Solas stepped up alongside her, holding out a bundle of leather.

“I suspect you shall have need of armor for this fight, Lethallan.”

So she was back to Lethallan. Interesting. She had expected to be demoted down to just “Herald” after her poor life choices had become public knowledge. Or perhaps a nice, brisk “murderer”. His hands sneaking under the edges of her shirt the other night had come as a shock. It had been so intimate, as though they had known each other for years. As though he wasn’t disgusted by her. She wasn’t exactly sure how to act going forward. The storm of judgement had not come, which was what she had been braced for. Now? Now what?

He unfurled the thing in his arms.

“My coat?” she asked, nonplussed. She had thought Udthiar still had it. 

“I should’ve given it to you sooner. I took it while leaving your clan’s camp,” he explained.

She accepted it, examining.  “In Huntsmaster Ando’s aravel? Why didn’t you give it to me then? And why is it so covered in blood?”

His mouth set in a firm line.  “You did nearly die while wearing it. I had not intended to keep it indefinitely, merely until it was needed.”

“Oh, well, thanks.” She hesitated at the strangely grim expression on his face and added, “I’m… sorry?”

His stony expression cracked and he gave her a small smile. The first she’d seen from him in days. 

“You are welcome. My apologies if I sounded defensive. I should have trusted that you did not mean to imply any sort of deceit on my part.”

“Should I have?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow at him.

His smile grew wider.  “Possibly. May I?”

He pulled the coat from her hands and held it up for her to slip into, letting his touch linger on her shoulders for a second longer than she would’ve expected. This was really not the time for her heart to be skipping beats.

“We’re talking,” she blurted out before her brain had time to fully wrap around words actually worthy of being spoken.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise as she turned to face him.  The little scar above his right eye pinched together into a small line and Eres focused on it, embarrassed.

“Yes… As we have many times before.”

“No, I mean - yes, but,” she blew out a breath, frustrated at how her words still refused to behave themselves. “What I mean is that we need to talk. After we go save the fucking city, I need to talk to you.”

Solas inclined his head towards the door.  “The fight is starting. We should move quickly.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“You did not ask a question,” he said over his shoulder, throwing open the door and jogging out into the beginnings of the battle. 

Eres followed, after a half-second of trying to decide whether she still wanted to kiss Solas or shank him. It was definitely one of the two. Neither were particularly relevant at the moment, however.

Chaos swiftly descended on the alienage. Gaunt, furious townspeople waving kitchen knives and homemade clubs came in wave after wave. They would’ve been civilians in any other situation if they were not hell-bent on destroying the elves of the alienage, and civilians died easily. When one of the knife-wielding humans had gone for an elf child, any sort of protest to such easy killing had been tightly sealed away in Eres’ mind. 

Cole took down the man that had tried to murder the crying child and carried her off into one of the houses. Eres could hear him whispering words of reassurance the whole way. He had been nothing but helpful the entire trip and she had treated him like shit. Her insides writhed as another handful of guilt was added to her mental tally. Focus.

Elves started to join the fight in earnest, seeming to gain confidence from the ferocity of the Inquisition’s defense and soon the entire alienage was packed wall to wall with flailing bodies. Eres would’ve almost preferred to have gone it alone with her people, but she supposed that this was a good thing for the downtrodden city elves. Nothing like rising up against assholes to put a little spring in one’s step. 

Ando had somehow managed to get himself onto a roof top and fired arrow after arrow into the fracas, whooping loudly each time he made a particularly tricky shot. There was a break in his shouts at one point and Eres wildly looked around to make sure he was still alright up there on the roof. 

“Da’len!” he bellowed.

“What?!” she shouted back. 

“Reinforcements!” he said with a cackle.

Shit. There were already so many enemies in the alienage. They had been winning, but if there were more reinforcements coming…

Eres froze in astonishment as she saw Kynan, along with twenty of the hunters from her clan come barreling into the fray. 

He shoved his way through to Eres and asked, “Where’s Shanna?”

She shrugged, still startled to see him.  “What are you doing here?”

“Udthiar’s been banished. The clan wants their ‘true’ keeper back,” Kynan said with a grin, throwing a bolt of lightning out at nearby man.

“What!” 

“Long story! I’ll explain later!” 

He disappeared off through the throng of combatants.

Eres settled back into the flow of the fight. With the help of the Dalish, it was over in nearly ten minutes. 

Ando clapped a hand on Eres’ shoulder as the rest of her crew picked their way over to her through the carnage.  “You fight like a shem, but you’ve got style. I’ll give you that, Da’len.”

It was the nicest thing he’d ever said to her.

“You’re going to go and make me all weepy, Huntsmaster.”

“Now you’ve ruined it. Feh! Go pick up a fucking bow - you’re fucking Dalish,” he said, sounding softer than all the previous times he’d said those words to her. 

Sera stomped over the corpse of a guard and drew to a stop next to them, snapping her bow onto the holster on her back.

“SHE has a bow,” Ando pointed out, waving over at Sera. “She’s barely even an elf.”

Sera drew a hand up to her chest, eyes shining with delight.  “Frigging flattered. Thanks!” Turning back to Eres she said, “Right, now that we’ve killed a dozen score of little people, how about killing the twat that started all this.”

Eres nodded and a veritable parade of her crew and city elves that had managed to arm themselves took off through the city, heading for the big mansion sitting on a cliff looking out over the sea. The streets were deserted, as they made their way through the town, and the mansion was surprisingly unguarded when they drew up to the big front doors.  The lock was a flowery thing; gold, gilted, and overly large. Eres had it open in a matter of seconds.  The entire horde that had tagged along with her swept into the house, dirty feet slapping on marble floors. Eres let the city elves pass her on the way up the stairs. She did see who it was that killed Duke Antoine, but he was dead within seconds of his bedroom door being swung open. 

After that, the elves milled around, swiping valuables and wrecking paintings of the Duke. Eres slumped down in the hall, watching Kynan and Deshanna argue. Solas slid down the wall next to her. 

“You’re telling me that the fucking Dread Wolf was in our camp last night?”  Deshanna let out an incredulous laugh.

“I’m not crazy! We all saw it!” Kynan defended. 

“Wait, what?” Eres asked, suddenly much more interested in hearing what they were talking about. Kynan looked over at her, eyes wide.

“The Dread Wolf! He came into our camp and took a bite out of Udthiar.”

Eres burst out laughing. That was the most ridiculous thing she had heard in a long time. Yes, she had grown up being warned about the Dread Wolf stalking Dalish camps, but she had thought it was just a way for the mothers of the clans to keep the kids from running around after dark. “Fen’Harel will eat your liver if you stay in the lake too long”; “Fen’Harel will chew your legs off if you go too near a shemlen town”; “Fen’Harel will rip your heart out if you don’t eat your greens”. She believed in Fen’Harel well enough, but why would a god even bother with mortals and their mundane lives? It didn’t make any sense. 

“Been hitting the elf root hard, Kynan?”

“No! Listen! It was a huge black wolf with red eyes! He sat right by the statue and sort of… well, he sort of sat there and looked at us until my uncle tried to run away. The whole clan thinks it was him! It was terrifying!”

Solas snorted, and all three Dalish elves swiveled their eyes to him. He looked surprised to have gained their attention.  “Ah, forgive me. The mental image of your entire camp panicked over a lone wolf was amusing.”

Kynan ground his teeth together.  “It was _Fen’Harel_.”

Deshanna patted his elbow.  “Sure it was, but now why do they want me back?”

“Because I couldn’t keep him out of our camp. They’re saying that I’m not the ‘true keeper’ because the Dread Wolf got in and attacked one of us. Udthiar was run out because the Dread Wolf’s caught his scent.”

Eres was going to give the next wolf she saw a hearty salute in thanks. Things were working out better than she could’ve hoped.

“Well, that’s… well. Ok,” Deshanna said. “Pretty amazingly convenient for me that some big wolf shows up and scares everyone into thinking they need me back. I guess I’ll take it, though.”

“Errr, excuse me, Miss?”

Deshanna turned to see a blood-spattered elven woman standing nervously behind her. A small crowd of the alienage elves were gathering around them.

Deshanna, surprised, asked, “Yes?”

“You’re a keeper? A Dalish keeper? I saw you doing magic. I just thought you should know that we - all of us - will not forget that the Dalish saved us”

Deshanna locked eyes with Eres for a moment before turning back and saying, “Well, it was mostly because of the Inqui-“

“The INQUIRY of Keeper Istamaethoriel into the matter, ” Eres cut across. “Don’t be modest, Shanna.”

Her voice sounded too perky, even to her own ears, but she didn’t need any more accolades. The Dalish would need to be seen as heroes by Wycome at least, if they were to get out of this situation without being seen as raiders attacking an under-protected city. 

Deshanna cleared her throat and started again, “Yes, uh, you’re welcome. Anyway, Eres, what are we supposed to do with this place? Does your Inquisition want a city?”

One of the city elves in the small huddle straightened indignantly and said, “No! This is an elven city now! We just ran out all of the nobles or killed them and you’re trying to hand us over to another human organization?”

“But-“ Deshanna started to say.

“You’re a keeper. So keep us.”

Eres mulled it over. It was an interesting idea. She had spent enough time living among elves in the cities to know that having a chance to rule over themselves would be a vast step forwards towards letting them feel like actual people again, as opposed to second rate citizens. Plus, it might spark a change elsewhere in Thedas. Give elves in other alienages hope. 

“I like it,” she said.

Deshanna wheeled on her.  “What?” 

“I think it’s a great idea. The clan can move in here. Think of it, Shanna, you could be the start of another Halamshiral.”

“Do I need to remind you of how the last Halamshiral went? Really?”

“Yeah, except this time the only vaguely Chantry-related group that could do any exalted marching is _mine_.”

Deshanna mouthed wordlessly. Fight won. Deshanna might have other excuses, but the fact remained that the elves needed this and Deshanna would be good at this. The Inquisition could protect them and that gave this new future for Wycome an actual chance. Eres pushed herself up to her feet and looked around at the assembled elves that had stopped to watch the exchange.

“Break out the casks, ladies and gents. You just won yourself a new city.”

A great cheer went up and people stopped shoving valuables into their pockets, instead going in search of the wine cellars. 

“I don’t recall agreeing to this,” Deshanna grumbled. 

“Oh come on, _Duchess_ of Wycome. Now you’ll have some walls to help you out if that pesky ‘Dread Wolf’ comes back.”

Eres headed back down the steps and outside to the grounds, Solas following at her side, silent. She had expected some sort of acknowledgement of what she had just done. Perhaps some approval, even. As soon as she set foot outside on the flat ground, he grabbed her arm and dragged her into a shaded corner of the yard, hidden from the eyes of the elves running back and forth from the mansion. She warily backed away from him, her back hit the stone wall of the mansion. She settled on leaning against it.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He asked, anger edging each one of his words. 

“Helping,” she said flatly. “I would’ve thought you’d be pleased. This will help our people.”

“But will it help the world?”

“We just cleared an entire city of anyone that could possibly be a Venatori supporter and we’re going to destroy a large chunk of red lyrium. Pretty sure that helped.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, looking like a teacher preparing to make a student see the error of their ways. He was going to call her da’len again. She just knew it. Her temper started to rise.

“Wycome would be better served as a foothold for the Inquisition in the Free Marches, rather than some idyllic dream, doomed to fail.”

“Doomed to fail? With the Inquisition protecting Wycome, this could be a real chance to change the status quo for elves! To set an example!” How could he not see this as a good thing? Did he really expect her to rule over an entire city in addition to running the Inquisition?

Solas took two quick steps forward and slammed her against the wall, his hands on either side of her head. He looked wild, full of dark anger that she had no idea how to understand. She tensed, heart hammering as the stone dug into her back and Solas’s necklace dug into her front.

“You think it is that easy? To start a revolution and walk away, trusting that things will work out?”

Eres’ stomach turned over. “What I think,” she hissed back, chin held high, “Is that a revolution needs to start somewhere. It’s the responsibility of the people that believe in the cause to keep it going, and there is not an elf anywhere in Thedas that does not believe in this cause. All except you, apparently.”

He grabbed her chin, forcing her head to tilt back farther and hold his gaze. She ignored the condescending gesture - she had no intentions of backing down from this fight or getting sidetracked from it.

“The larger picture, Eres. That is where your concerns should lie. You cannot afford to let yourself be distracted by other matters. Do not lose sight of your true goals.”

“No.”

“No what?”

He was leaning close enough that his lips could brush hers with the slightest reach.

“No to not stopping to help where I can. Cole’s had it right the whole time, I should’ve listened to him more. I can help and I should. No to becoming a living wrecking ball, only meant to destroy the thing it’s pointed at. If I’m going to save the world, I’m going to do it in my own way. I am a person, Solas, and people need to do what’s right by them if there’s to be any hope of following through on the bigger problems.”

She searched in his eyes, desperately trying to understand what was happening in the mind behind them. The hand on her chin softened and he leaned his forehead down, resting it on hers. 

“You continue to surprise me. Your words sound like Wisdom. Forgive me. Your perspective on the matter is sounder than I had expected.”

“You may be the only person ever to accuse me of sounding wise.”

He huffed out a small laugh, but said nothing, instead trailing his nose along her cheek with his eyes closed. Eres’ breathing hitched and she focused in on the soft sensation of skin on skin. She felt as though he had traced a line of fire over her with just this little touch. How did he manage to draw such responses from her from so little? It boggled her mind. His hands slid down to her backside, cupping and massaging the muscles there and any further contemplations left in her mind vanished. She wanted him. Against this wall. Right now. Her hands fumbled for the edge of his tunic, reaching for the warm, muscled expanse of skin she had gotten a glimpse of days ago in Kirkwall. 

Solas stepped back suddenly, shaking his head. 

“I… You have given me much to ponder. Again, forgive me.”

Eres sagged against the wall, prickles of un-satisfaction tugging at the edge of her mind. She was too hot, too hazy from the argument and then his touch to think of words to get him back to her. 

“Solas… I want this. You.”

His jaw clenched as he regarded her, hands balling into fists at his side. She saw the naked desire in his eyes, felt the whisperings of uncontrolled magic swirling around him, but he did not move back to her.

After another moment, some of the need started to fade from him and he said, “I know. I…You had said you would give me time to think. I still need it.”

Eres blew out a breath, trying to release some of the pressure built up in her.

“Right. Fine. I’ll just… I’m gonna be inside, getting blindingly drunk at the party that is brewing. If you change your mind… you know where to find me.” 

She straightened and walked back into the mansion, already hearing the sounds of homemade guitars and flutes warming up. At the top of the stairs up to the front door she looked back and could just see Solas standing deathly still through the trees. Out of nowhere he whirled and a tree burst into flame with one great whoosh of magical energy. She rocked back, impressed. Apparently she was not the only one left frustrated. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eres "I'll be in my bunk" Lavellan
> 
> Also, salesman and EvolShota, your bookmark comments make me SUPER SUPER happy. Thank you! Just thought I should throw that out there <3 
> 
> I was originally intending this to be two chapters, but I really just want to get things moving along and start tying up stuff. I don't know if it'll come across like that to you all. It's a tooootally different experience writing vs. reading a fic, man. Even though I've gone back and read through all of my other chapters, I still have a hard time being able to read through and keep myself separate from it. Weird, weird.


	22. Grace

“Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink! YESSSS!”

A tidal wave of a cheer echoed around the marble dining hall as Eres slammed another emptied glass down on the table in front of her. Cole picked up his eighth cup, peering at the brownish liquid then back up at Eres, looking confused.

“But… is something supposed to happen?” He asked, staring around at the crowd urging him on. 

Eres pressed her palms flat on the polished table in order to hold herself steady. It didn’t much help. The table seemed to be rocking back and forth under her hands. Instead, she tried gripping the armrests of the mahogany dining room chair she was seated in. Yes. The chair was a bit steadier. 

“Cole. Cole, Cole, Cole. Don’t you feel… I dunno, something?” 

The spirit boy scrunched up his eyes and breathed deep for a few seconds. “Yes,” he said slowly. “There’s a faint sort of… buzzing. On the inside. Back where all of the bad and wonderful ideas are kept. Is that it? Am I doing it right?” Cole glanced up at her hopefully.

Eres sighed. Sera had dropped down under the table two cups ago and was snoring softly onto Eres’ bare feet. Eres likely would have slipped down to the parquet floor herself, had Deshanna not been standing behind her bellowing “NEVER AGAIN SHALL WE SUBMIT” directly into her ear. The new Duchess had not tried to outdrink a spirit, but she had done a fairly good job at _drinking spirits_.

Eres snorted out loud at that. Gods she was funny sometimes. And smart sometimes. And she was alright looking, wasn’t she? And she knew 147 ways to kill a human with her bare hands. 147! If that wasn’t damned impressive she didn’t know what was. So why, if she was so damned impressive, was she unable to mentally move on from a man that had rejected her multiple times? Her brain was an asshole. He was an asshole! Getting her all worked up and then shutting it down. She blew out a raspberry and picked up her cup once again.

“Sure, kid, sounds ‘slike it’s starting to work.”

“Oh good!” Cole said brightly, and drained yet another cup of the decadent cognac they had found in the former duke’s cellars. Eres looked dubiously into her own glass. She had learned to drink from dwarves. This should be easy, yet there was no way she was going to win this contest. Not if the spirit only felt a “slight buzzing”. 

Solas entered at the far end of the room. She could just see him through the stamping and dancing elves surrounding her and Cole. They locked eyes and a sharp jab of want knifed up in her belly. Damn him. 

She knocked back glass number eight, flipping it down onto the table. The crowd cheered again. Solas hung back, letting the dance floor and moving bodies put distance between them, so that her view of him strobed as the elves wove constantly changing gaps in their eye contact. 

Deshanna poked her in between her eyebrows with a pointed finger and brought her face down to a level with Eres’. Her breath gusted in boozy-scented waves as she said, “You should make him dance with you. He fancies you, that one.”

“What?”

“Dance! You’re s’good at dancing. I want to see you dance!” 

“Dancing?”

“Yes!”

That was… an excellent idea! Eres stood abruptly, swaying as her head caught up to the alcohol burning in her veins. She swiped another glass off of the table and filled it with more of the amber liquid.

“‘Atta girl” Deshanna crooned, slapping her on the shoulder.

Eres tried to gather her bearings before setting off, but the floor felt like each square of inlaid wood was moving of its own accord. Keeping her footing on a steady course was difficult, especially as she worked to stop the drink from sloshing, but she managed to make it across the makeshift dance floor with only one minor spill. One wasn’t bad, all things considered.

“Lethallan,” Solas said nonchalantly, looking her up and down. She fidgeted under the gaze, willing the room to stop swaying. 

“Cognac?” She offered, holding out the glass. 

He plucked it from her fingers, carefully avoiding any contact with her. 

“Lost your game?” He asked, taking a small sip.

“There’s no loser in a drinking contest.”

“Debatable. I see you’ve tried to introduce our spirit to the wonders of alcoholic consumption. How did that work for you?”

“Well, he’s s’on cup number nine and I decided to gracefully make my exit.”

“Gracefully? I confess, your grace seems somewhat diminished tonight,” he said fighting a smile. 

Affronted, Eres smacked his arm as her cheeks heated up past the glow already provided by the booze. “Rude. Just because I’m drunk doesn’t mean that I can’t be graceful.”

“I’m afraid there isn’t much evidence to the contrary at present.”

“Well, maybe I shan’t ask you to dance with me then, Messere,” she said, putting on her best affected Free Marcher noble accent and tossing her hair over her shoulder. 

“You’ve already tried once tonight,” he said over the rim of the cup with a positively wicked grin . 

She stared at him, open mouthed. He _knew_ how much it had bothered her, and yet here he was, making her think of it all again. Eres leaned forward poking a finger into his chest and stretching up to his face so that he would not miss her roaring frown.

“At least _I’m_ not the one blowing up trees. Now, I’m going to go dance and you can just see how graceful I can be, liquor or no.”

She’d show him some fucking grace. 

 

—

 

He watched her stalk in a resolute, yet wobbly line out to the dance floor. Solas was half-worried that she’d break an ankle with this ridiculous endeavor. He had seen her slightly tipsy after a night in Haven spent with Iron Bull, Varric and Sera, but this was on an entirely different level.

Eres plucked a young elven man from the sidelines of the dance floor and whipped him out in front of her, laughing at the shocked look on his face, disbelieving of his luck. That could’ve been him. Solas was the one that could’ve been gripping her hand and whirling her around the parquet floor. Flinging her out, and then drawing her slowly, achingly back to his chest. The boy didn’t know the steps, but Eres compensated, using her skill to make them both look as though they had done it together for years. 

She was a wonder. 

He had barely doubted it, but goading her when she was in this state had been safer than declaring that he thought she might actually be the most graceful person he had ever encountered. Inebriated as she was, she had still had that distinctive slink suffusing her gate when she had sauntered over to him. Even the hair flick she had performed held more casual elegance than any other woman could ever hope to accomplish. He wondered how she would react to him telling her these things. Likely, it would involve her sputtering in alarm and leaving quickly as it had in Haven. Though not, perhaps, if he was whispering them to her against her collarbone with his hands snarled in her hair. Nor if he said them while she rode atop him with her back arced in ecstasy and his hands gripping around her waist. Then again, she might not even hear his words over the sounds he would draw from her if he ever had her in such a position.

_Fenedhis._

He slugged back the glass of liquor, opting out of taking his time to savor it. There were other things he wished to be savoring and the alcohol burning down his throat offered at least some form of distraction. For a heartbeat.

Then the boy dipped her back and ran a hand down Eres' thigh.

 

—

 

“Might I cut in?”

As she spun with the man she had decided looked promising enough, Solas came into view, bowing slightly with an outstretched hand and an unfathomable look on his face. She abruptly stopped dancing. Her partner tried to pull her back into another twirl, looking somewhat desperate to keep her at his side. Actually, he looked like he was thinking of fighting Solas for her. Which was so, so, so ridiculous on so many levels. She would take him down before he even started to draw back a fist. Had he not just seen that what she’d done to an entire mob of humans? She shot the man a sharp look and he wilted. Ah, apparently he had seen. Good. Eres had to hold back a laugh. 

“Thank you for the dance, but I’m afraid I had already promised my friend here that I would take a turn with him.”

“Right, er, thank you, Lady Lavellan. If you have need of another dance partner, I’d be glad to join you again.”

She slipped her hand into Solas’, and he laced his fingers through hers before drawing her up against him. He lead her into a more complicated version of the dance she had tried to drag her old partner through.

“It seems I was mistaken about your grace,” He said, leaning down and pressing his cheek against her hair so that she could hear his low words.

“You’re going to drive me mad,” she whispered back to him. “I didn’t expect you to know how to dance.”

He spun her out in reply, drawing her back in so that her arms were crossed over her chest and her back was against him. He asked as they swayed, “Would you care to try a dance I saw once in the fade? At one time I found ruins that I was fairly certain were left behind from the times of Elvhenan and watched it performed there.”

“I’d love to.”

“Follow my lead.”

He twisted her around in a new way, and her feet found the steps. It was a different sort of dance; slinkier, slower with edges of abrupt movement that delighted her. She had never done anything like it, but fell into it with ease. Solas lead her liltingly around the dance floor and the other elves started to move out of their way, stepping back and watching. They wove and spun and she lost herself completely, focused only on the dance and the warm pair of hands guiding her through it. 

 

—

 

Her eyes still danced, though their feet had stopped. They stood panting in the middle of the floor, frozen in the end pose of the _Felas’lath._ He had never thought to have a chance to perform it again, nor so well. Looking at her like this, without fighting, without sadness or worry coloring the air around them was almost difficult to bear. His chest ached and his mind went blank. Only the pair of bright eyes gazing back into his own mattered. She smiled up at him - a small smile, one corner of her mouth turning up.

Earlier he hadn’t blown up a tree out of pent up frustration. He had set it ablaze in a moment of panic; immolated it in a sudden, blinding realization, followed by a hard knot of fear. 

He was in love with her.

And there would be no more denying it. 

 

—

 

“' _Ma serannas_ , Eres,” Solas said quietly.

The world slowly righted itself as he drew her back up out of the dip, then wronged itself once again when he released her from his arms. 

“Will you stay?” She asked.

He looked down at her with sad grey eyes and said a gentle, “No.”

She did not understand where the sadness had come from, but perhaps he wished to remain longer and was too tired. 

“Ok. There are bedrooms on the second floor that we’re staying in tonight, if you need to sleep.”

He nodded and turned to go. 

“Solas?”

“Yes?”

“' _Ma serannas_ for the dance.”

 

—

 

Solas found his way up to one of the rooms and slowly peeled off his tunic before falling into the soft, silken bed. 

He had put this off far too long. 

He entered the fade and walked the familiar paths, winding through the forests of memory. Soft sparks of wisps trailed behind him, throwing long shadows before him.

“You have not come to see me for some time, Solas.”

“We used to go centuries without meeting.”

Wisdom hummed in acknowledgement.

He sat down in the springy grass. Wisps ringed the small clearing, lending their muted blue light so that he could see Wisdom perched on her high backed armchair. Wisdom’s grotto was in the middle of the woods and filled with bookshelves and assorted items that had made their way into the fade by the strength of the emotional attachments people had formed with them in the waking lands. He had always loved this place. 

“This is a different sort of time. You are actively engaged in it now, which grants higher perception of the minute details. Surely you’ve experienced it?”

He thought, and realized the truth in her words.

“I suppose you're right. Time does not feel as though it is slipping away from me quite so quickly,” he said and rubbed a hand over his head. Interesting, the way focus could change the skew of years. Less than a year had passed since he had joined the Inquisition, yet he could remember all of it with in-depth detail, while five hundred years could pass in the fade and he would barely notice. This was not the time to to discuss it, however. He had visited Wisdom for a reason. 

He took a deep breath and said, “I love her.” 

Saying the words out loud felt strange. Alien, but real. Too real. This had not been part of the plan.

Wisdom regarded him pensively for minutes before asking, “Why?”

“Everything. I have never… there has never been someone that…” The words would not come. How was he to distill down the intricate web of all that he felt about Eres? No words could accurately capture the reality of it. No words, except perhaps...

"She is real."

The realization had fully settled; a weight of certainty that left not room for denial any longer.

Wisdom smiled then, leaning forward on her armchair. 

“Romantic love is something I have not experienced, though I have observed much and seen the ways in which it can destroy people. The small deaths people face when they lose a love serve as cautionary tales, but sometimes cautionary tales are best ignored. Love is said to be the greatest of all emotions - like cool water to burning lips. You do not have to endure alone.”

Some of the roaring, aching guilt slipped away from him at Wisdom’s words. Endure. The word Wisdom flung at him time and again as he had watched the waking world fall apart from the fade. Endure through it all, while he could do nothing but observe. The word had used to enrage him, but now it felt almost like a promise. _You will wait. You will set it right._ And now, _You do not have to be alone._

 

—

 

Eres tried to join back in with the crowd surrounding Cole. He was now competing against Kynan, who was half-slumped on the table, hand wavering as he tried to reach for another glass of liquor. Her mood had already turned too quiet for the party, though. She wanted to talk to Solas, but he was likely asleep. 

She could use sleep. The alcohol still sloshed in her veins, but the dancing had sharpened her focus and she did not feel quite so intoxicated as she had before. 

Bidding Deshanna goodnight, Eres slipped away from the large dining hall. On silent feet, she climbed the stone steps and padded down the long hallway full of bedrooms. She picked one at random and her heart turned over when she saw it was the one Solas had chosen. She hastily leapt back out, but stilled with her hand on the door. 

He looked peaceful. She crept closer, studying him. The lines around his eyes were softened in sleep, and steady soft breaths were the only sounds in the room. 

An idea tugged in her mind, and she wondered if it would directly conflict with “giving him time” if she were to crawl in alongside him and nestle close under the covers. She could blame it on the alcohol - say she didn’t even remember doing it. 

 _No._  Eres would respect his wishes. She pulled the blankets up higher over his bare chest, pressing a palm to them briefly. There were some things that needed to be done the right way, and this was one of them. 

Eres didn’t know what exactly it was she felt for Solas, but warmth filled her whenever she looked at him. Different now, after all they had gone through on this quest. She had fallen out of the habit of making new emotional entanglements, only relying on those she already possessed, but she was thoroughly snared in… whatever this was. The thought of letting herself be emotionally close with someone again, not just physically close, terrified her. Still, she had not made any sort of move to stop herself from being sucked in by him. It would require some thought. If she was to fall, she would fall with her eyes open.

Eres took one last look before wandering off to find herself another room. 

 

—

 

“Something she said reminded me of you. She said ‘People need to do what’s right by them if there’s to be any hope of following through on the bigger problems’.”

“Interesting turn of phrase, but the meaning is sound. Will you heed her wisdom?”

He thought, shuffling through the layers of guilt that had settled over centuries and decided. 

“I want to.”

It would not be particularly kind to do so, but the more he thought of it, the more possible it seemed. He could, perhaps, find a way to save her. His chest clenched as he thought on it. He  _had_ to find a way to save her.

Wisdom smiled and the air around them turned warmer, cozier. 

“I am happy for you, my friend. You do not need to live in eternal punish-“

The veil thinned, moonlight showing from the other side. Chanted words echoed around the clearing. Solas jumped to his feet, preparing to do… what? He could not stop a summoning from this side. 

Wisdom began to drift through the veil, pulled unwillingly by the magnetic force of the mages. 

"Help!"

Soals tried to grab Wisdom’s hands - to hold her back, but she was already fading. With a small pop, she was gone. Displaced into reality. Desperately, before the veil solidified itself, he looked for some sign of where she was taken and spotted the rolling planes of the Dales. 

He awoke with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed. He leapt out of the covers and took off to find Eres. There would be no leisurely journey back to the Frostbacks - they were needed now. She would wonder how he knew to find an eluvian so near Wycome, but it was undeniably the only way to make it in time to save Wisdom.

Solas tore into the hall, but did not see Eres back at the drinking game. Asleep, then. He turned and ran back up the stairs. 

He could say that he had found it in a dream, but that excuse was surely wearing thin. The unlocking of the eluvians, then, and his subsequent “sensitivity” to them. It would have to do. 

Solas threw open door after door, finally coming up the one where Eres lay curled up on a bed big enough to hold four of her. 

He stalked over and shook her shoulder. She awoke with a start, blinking up at him and whipping a knife up to his throat, small crackles of lighting sparking at his neck from the enchantment on it. The moonlight filtering in from the window nearly made her eyes glow. After a few heartbeats Eres seemed to gain some sense of her surroundings and slowly lowered the weapon. 

“Solas?” 

“I am sorry to wake you, but I must ask a favor.”

She looked startled and sat up on her elbows. He perched on the edge of her bed and folded his hands in his lap to stop them from shaking. 

“Of course, anything.” 

“My oldest friend has been captured by mages. Forced into the slavery of a binding. I was conversing with her when she was taken.”

“A spirit?” Eres asked. 

“Yes. Of wisdom.”

“Alright. Do you know where the mages took it?”

“Somewhere in the Dales.”

Eres whistled. “The Dales will take a while to get to - we’d still need to go back to Kirkwall to use an eluvian.”

Solas clenched his hands tighter. “I believe that I sensed an eluvian nearby when we fled your clan. It seems that the energy released upon our first encounter with one has left me sensitive to them. We must move quickly. I am worried that the mages mean to torture my friend - to force it to give up information that it wishes to keep secret.”

“I - of course. I’ll gather Sera and Cole. We may need to get horses if Sera’s still asleep.”

He nodded, beyond grateful that she had not questioned him further. He brought his hands up to her cheeks, holding her face and pressed a small kiss to her forehead. 

“Thank you,” he said before standing and hurrying back out of the room to collect up his shirt and staff.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! And for sticking with it through me being a massive tease :D
> 
> I went back through a lot of the earlier chapters tonight and re-edited them. I feel like I've really hit my stride now and wanted to fix up how they all read. No story changes, just generally better sounding stuff. It was pretty weird, actually, seeing some of the things I wrote before I really got a hold on how I was going to write these two doofuses. I updated my preface in honor of the occasion.


	23. Faded

 

 _“Lethallin. Ir abelas,”_ Solas whispered, falling to his knees in front of the now-calm spirit. Prideful no longer.

 _“Tel’abelas. Enansal. Ir tel’him,”_ it said, voice gravelly and feminine.

Eres looked away. She understood the words being spoken, and a deathbed conversation between two friends was not meant for the eyes of others.

_“Ma melava halani. Mala suledin nadas. Ma ghilana mir din’an.”_

_“Ma nuvenin.”_

Solas hung his head as the spirit drifted apart in a scattering of light. Eres walked closer, cautiously laying a hand on his shoulder.

 _“Dareth shiral,”_ Solas said, placing his hand over hers.

She wanted to comfort him, swoop down on him and hold him close, but did not know if that was what he needed. All of the grief in her own life she had dealt with silently. Alone. She suspected that she and Solas had that in common. 

“I heard what it said. It was right. You did help.”

His hand tensed on top of hers.

“Now I must endure.”

“Let me know if I can help,” she offered quietly.

Solas stood, turning to her. Sadness and weariness pulled down on his features, but his eyes were soft when they met hers.

“You already have. All that remains now is them,” he said, as he rounded on the mages that had captured the spirit. He became practically feral before her eyes as he regarded his friend’s killers. 

They walked forward, hesitantly, not seeming to understand the danger they were advancing towards. Eres felt the insane urge to yell at them to run. Run and never look back, nor repeat their mistakes. She stayed silent. They were doomed from the moment they had ripped Solas’ friend from the fade and she could not deny him this justice. 

“Thank you. We would not have risked a summoning, but the roads are too dangerous to travel unprotected,” said the moon-faced leader of the idiot mages.

Solas stalked forward, power making visible halos of magic in the air surrounding him.

“You tortured and killed my friend.”

“We didn’t know it was - just a spirit! The book said it could help us!”

Eres only watched. In one blinding flash, they were dead. The smell of burnt flesh made her stomach turn over. There was something different in watching him kill enemies not actively fighting back, something sad. Just, but sad. She had gone down that path before - killing those too inane to be wary of the danger surrounding them. It made a person detached. Or rather, one had to be detached in order to stay sane. 

“I need some time alone. I will meet you back at Skyhold,” Solas said without looking back at her as he walked away across the plains. 

She let him go. People needed time to reassemble themselves after the death of a loved one - to rearrange the parts of their souls left empty in the wake of the loss, so that they could come out stable on the other side. Not necessarily right, but whole enough to continue on with life. She had gone down that path as well. 

Once Solas had disappeared from sight, Eres breathed out what felt like her first full breath since he had woken her in Wycome.

Their entire journey to Orlais Solas had remained quiet, focussed, as though he could speed their steps if he just concentrated hard enough. She had been swept up in terrible intensity of their new mission and stayed quiet as well. They had found the eluvian easily enough, Solas pinpointing its exact location in the woods near Wycome - a stroke of luck. Eres unlocked it, watching to see if Solas would be struck again by its magic, but he stood still as a statue against the power that she felt come from her words. He had rushed through the eluvian without waiting to see if the rest of the group followed. By the time they all had gone through Solas was already meters away, wandering through the rows of mirrors in the Crossroads. 

He had lead them to a rather ornate one, standing in front of it and waiting for them to catch up. 

“Here.”

“ _Fen’harel enansal_ ,” she had said again, and they had walked out into a ruin, sunlight filtering through stone arches half-lost to time. It had not been long before they had started to find the bodies.

Feeling sick remembering the carnage, Eres started to walk the opposite way Solas had left, Sera and Cole trailing behind. Once she had put enough distance between her and the site of the whole mess, she turned to her two remaining companions and asked, “Sleep or Skyhold?”

Sera, who had been surprisingly reticent throughout the whole trip and subsequent affair said, “You’re not hearing me say this, but it’d be damned nice if we had another elfy magic mirror. Skyhold.”

“I don’t sleep,” said Cole. 

Right, of course he didn’t. 

So they began the long journey back to Skyhold, hungover and tired past the point of endurance, but desperately wanting to be someplace that felt like home. 

It was well past midnight when the horses they had “liberated” from some foolhardy chevaliers in the Dales clomped across the stone bridge to Skyhold. Shouts of “the Inquisitor’s back!” Echoed around the empty stone courtyards, making Eres wince. She had no intentions of doing anything but sleeping for the next few days, which would be easier if everyone just went ahead and pretended like she wasn’t there. She walked Sera and Cole over to the tavern where they had claimed their individual spaces and before she thought better of it, hugged them both, mumbling "thank you"s into their respective shoulders. 

She trudged through the quiet castle and up to her tower, dropping down onto her bed without changing and slept and slept and slept.

Days passed with no sign of Solas. Spidery wisps of worry skittered around the edges of Eres’ mind at all hours as she pushed herself through the mountains of paperwork Josephine flung her way the moment she stepped out of her tower. There were noble requests, lands to explore, Ben-Hassrath reports and a worrying contract on Josephine’s head to deal with, but anything that required Eres to leave Skyhold was put off, under the pretense of exhaustion. She was tired, true, but mostly she was worried. Her mind kept drifting back to the man somewhere out in the world grieving the loss of his friend. She wanted to be at Skyhold when he returned. _If_ he returned. That thought kept her up every night he was gone. 

If their places were swapped, she was unsure if she would have come back. 

Eres had ordered the patrols to alert her the moment Solas was spotted near Skyhold. On the ninth day of his absence, word finally came. 

Eres had been tapping her quill on the table again - a steady staccato that made Leliana shoot her glare after glare whenever Eres unconsciously picked up the tapping again. Her hand seemed to do it of its own accord. Then the doors had burst open and a scout came walking quickly in.

“Master Solas is approaching Skyhold up the main path, Inquisitor,” said the scout, bowing low and shooting an anxious glance around at her advisors. Eres leapt up, nearly unsettling the stack of papers set in front of Josephine in her haste.

“Inquisitor,” Cullen said quickly, “We really must sort out what to do about those soldiers that went missing in the Fallow Mire.” He sounded disapproving at the interruption, but Eres couldn’t bring herself to feel properly abashed.

“Later,” she said, leaving the room without a backwards glance. 

Solas was back. She hadn’t let herself believe it would be possible. He could’ve slipped away, knowing that the Inquisition would take care of the world. Gone back to his solitary, wandering life, but he hadn’t. He was back. Heart thudding loudly in her ears, Eres walked down the stone steps, keeping her eyes on the man walking in through the main gates. He drew to a stop when he saw her, and she closed in the distance between them.

“You came back,” she practically gasped, unable to keep the relief from seeping into her words. It was a stupid statement, but what else could she say?

He stood there, looking at her, unmoving and unspeaking, exhausted. She fidgeted, suddenly nervous. 

Then, a small smile spread over his face.

“Eres… I was… do you have a moment?” Solas asked. 

 

—

 

They walked up through the hall, bypassing the rotunda room he had claimed for himself. Solas instead headed for Eres’ tower. To have her standing there waiting for him, after he had spent days thinking of her… He sighed as he began climbing the steps. 

Once in her room he turned for the balcony - the cold mountain air slapping his mind into attention. He needed his head clear for this talk.

“What were you like? Before the anchor?”

She looked confused. He supposed it was a rather odd question. Still, he had to know. Had to be sure. 

“Has it affected you? Changed you in any way? Your mind? Your morals? Your… spirit?”

Eres took some time to consider. She leaned down on the balcony railing and looked out over the mountains, thinking. 

“If it had, do you really think I’d have noticed?” She finally said, after several moments of silence. She toyed with her hands, still leaning on the rail. A cold breeze lifted her hair back from her face, giving Solas a moment to study the sharp cut of her profile and the dark circles under her eyes.

“No, that’s an excellent point.” Not the point he’d wanted to hear, but an excellent one nonetheless. The thought that his own magic becoming a part of her and changing her to be more in line with him had crossed his mind the first night he had spent alone in Wisdom’s grotto. It seemed almost impossible that she could be all that he wanted, distilled into one person caught in the wrong time. Now that he was actually back in her presence, though, he realized he was grasping at straws - only looking for a reason to turn away from the realizations of the days before. Eres made sense. Far more, he was sure, than the little she knew of him made sense to her. She had gone through much in her life and all of the personality and decisions he had seen from her lined up with it. He was being paranoid. 

“Why do you ask?”

“You show a wisdom I have not seen since…” He blew out a breath, looking away from her. He could not tell her. What was there to say instead to make his point and properly convey just how much of a singularity she was? “Since my deepest journeys into the ancient memories of the fade. You are not what I expected.”

It fell flat. He knew it would. 

“Sorry to disappoint.” Eres said with a confused half-smile and shrug.

He had to make her understand. 

“It’s not disappointing. It’s…” he sighed again. This conversation was not working out at all how he had intended. Perhaps he should have just launched himself at her as soon as they had entered her room. Likely that would’ve conveyed his point just as well. “Most people are predictable. You have shown subtlety in your actions, a wisdom that goes against everything I expected.”

She straightened, crossing her arms and cocking a hip.

“Because I’m Dalish?”

“In part. If the Dalish could raise someone with a spirit like yours… Have I misjudged them?”

“For the record, the Dalish didn’t make me like this. The decisions were mine.”

Of course they were. He needed to stop looking for excuses - for answers in other places as to how she could be all that she was.

“Yes, you are wise to give yourself that due. Although the Dalish, in their fashion, may still have guided you. Perhaps that is it. I suppose it must be. Most people act with so little understanding of the world, but not you.”

Her eyebrows raised.

“So what does this mean, Solas?”

It meant that he found her extraordinary. It meant that his days were spent thinking of her and his nights spent consciously working to not dream about her. It meant that he loved her.

“It means I have not forgotten the kiss.”

Not for one moment.

Eres’ face lit up and his heart broke a little to see the honest happiness there. This was unwise, a mistake. He should have stayed away. He was going to hurt her, before the end and she had no idea what was to come.

She walked closer to him, leaning up so that there was next to no space between them, but unmoving. She wanted him to make the move. To guarantee that this time he wouldn’t pull back from her. 

He couldn’t do that. 

Solas turned to leave, but Eres’ hand landed on his arm. 

“Don’t go,” she whispered.

“It would be kinder in the long run,” he said without facing her. He would literally rip her world apart, but… 

“But losing you would…”

He swooped back around and gathered her up into kiss. In that moment, everything was perfectly, blindingly right. Gone were his concerns, his protests, his better judgement. All that mattered were her lips on his. It was a different kiss than their first - softer, headier, but lacking none of the desperation he had felt that other time. She was a fast, fleeting thing and would be gone in the blink of an eye. There would never be enough time to spend with her, so he meant to enjoy the little he had. 

She melted under his touch, back arching under his hands as her lips parted. Warm breath intermingled with his own and her hands gripped at his rough wool shirt, pulling him in, dragging him closer so that they were crushed together. He didn’t deepen the kiss. Not yet. He savored the feel of her; the sleek muscles hidden under her baggy shirt and the velvety smoothness of her mouth as he captured her lower lip gently between his own, giving it the slightest bit of a nip. Eres moaned against him in response and some of his careful, measured exploration started to slip away. 

He had to tell her, before this moment was lost. 

He drew back the barest amount, to get out the words.

“ _Ar lath ma, Vhenan.”_

Her eyes widened, startled, shocked. He did not want to hear her response to the implied question each time one person said those words to another. He did not deserve to have her love him in return; not with all that was being left unsaid and not with all he intended. So he leaned back in, letting his nose trace over her cheek, mouths a scant inch apart before tangling his hands up in her hair and drawing her back to him. 

Her lips curled up in a smile against his and he knew her answer, whether she spoke it or not. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter's gonna be NSFW. So, if that's not your thing, apologies in advance. We can just awkwardly side-eye each other until I soldier through onto the chapter after that :D 
> 
> Also, just as far as writing this story is going for me right now... it's so strange being back in canon-land! hahaha. Oh man, I'm so used to having to make up everything from almost scratch. It was weird trying to use the actual dialogue again. So since it's a transitiony chapter + a canon one, writing it was sorta hard for me. Not one of the ones that just flows naturally out of my head - I had to rassle this sucker into submission.
> 
> ALSO, hey, so like, um. I've never written smut before. I've watched/read/done smut before, but never written. So this next chapter is probably going to *coughs nervously* take a bit of thought for me. Good gravy do I not want it to come across dumb.


	24. For Her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg. 
> 
> NSFW
> 
> BONUS THING:  
> I listened to the song [Tulips by Bloc Party](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v04vS71OG5M) on repeat while I wrote this. If you want to understand what I was going for, listen to that song. Kinda dark, kinda hot, kinda pensive, still a love song.

The smile was what did it. Any thoughts of holding back - of starting off slowly with her came crashing down around him. He wanted her. Now. 

Solas slammed her back against the stone wall, not breaking the kiss. One hand held him up, the other was still snarled in her hair, pulling her head back so that he could run a line of light kisses down the side of her neck. He stopped to bite at the skin where her neck met her shoulder, inhaling the warm, sweet smell of her, and Eres sucked in a harsh breath at the feel of his teeth. She slid her hands up under his shirt, fingernails digging into his back, sharp points of pleasure spiking into his mind.

It wasn’t enough. It could never be enough. 

He dropped his hands to her rear, lifting her so that she could wrap her legs around his waist.

There were too many clothes in the way. He wanted to feel her, learn every inch of her. Holding Eres up, he captured her mouth again in a kiss and stepped away from the wall, carrying her into the room. They fell onto the bed, a soft laugh whooshing from her as they sank into the downy mattress.

Solas held himself above her for moment, somewhat jogged into reality by her laugh. He looked down at her flushed face and shining eyes. This was really happening. She was real and whole and here with him and it was fantastically, ridiculously unimaginable, and yet, it was happening. She was the most beautiful thing he could ever remember seeing, as she lay there underneath him. He had found her lovely when they had first met, but now he knew it was tantamount to an insult to think of her as such. She was an attractive woman, but saying so would be like saying that night was dark. Obvious - mundane to the point of absurdity and capturing none of what made her unique. Important.

Eres’ smile started to dim as she looked up at him, growing confused at the long pause. She probably thought he was going to leave again, not understanding that for him to willingly leave her now was an impossibility.

He leaned down and gave her a soft kiss before sitting back on his knees, straddling her. She really looked worried. He couldn’t help chuckling, which seemed to calm her to some extent. Her consternation completely disappeared when he tugged his shirt off over his head. Her eyes traced over his bare chest and her breathing hitched.  

In one quick move, as soon his shirt had cleared his head, Eres leveraged his more precarious position against him and flipped them over so that she was astride him. It caught him completely off guard, and so he was unprepared for the next moment when her hips started to roll in circles, grinding down on him tauntingly, agonizingly, sending his mind into free fall.

 

—

 

Eres half-expected to wake from some fevered worry-dream any minute, but his chest was solid and warm and real under her hands. The salty taste of his skin was real on her tongue. The fingers skimming through her hair and the hand caressing her cheek as she trailed lower down his torso were _real._

“Wait,” he said in a hoarse whisper. He reached up and gripped the edges of her shirt, and with a swift tug of the linen, ripped it open sending buttons plinking onto the floor. His hands edged along her naked sides, digging into her waist like he was afraid she’d disappear. She leaned back, watching him watch her as she slid the open shirt off of her shoulders, then slowly unwound her breast band. 

This was so different. New. _Ar lath ma, Vhenan._ Love. Her chest clenched. She shivered when she met his gaze. He was looking at her like she was the sun.

_Ar lath ma, Vhenan._

Solas leaned up, wrapping his arms around the small of her back, nuzzling into the hollow of her throat before moving down to her naked breasts. She leaned back farther, held up by his hands as his mouth closed around the tip of one, already a rounded point in the cold air of the room. She hissed in a breath at the feel of his tongue swirling around her nipple; shooting flashes of warmth ricocheting through her body and stopping thoughts dead in their tracks. His teeth skimmed the sensitive skin and she failed to hold in a strangled sound that started deep in her throat. She could feel the unmistakable hardness of him under her where she sat, feel the way his fingers tightened around her at her moan and wanted more.

He rolled them over once again, sliding down lower once her back hit the soft bed. Solas tugged at the waist of her leggings, slipping them down, over her thighs, her calves before tossing them to the floor. He lowered his head so that his lips skimmed her smalls just at the point where he knew he’d drive her mad. Every muscle in her body tensed. 

“Last chance to run, Vhenan,” he said, hot, ragged breath cutting through the last bit of thin fabric covering her. 

 _Vhenan._  

She did feel like running. She ran from everything that felt too big to face. This was too big to face. She would’ve run from the Inquisition long ago if she hadn’t been marked by the anchor. Love was massive and heavy and something not meant for her, and yet, here he was, one hand resting on her belly and one dangerously high on her upper thigh, eyes fixed on hers… almost looking like he was pleading with her to walk away. Solas who was always so self-assured, so confident, was scared. Of her. It was the most reassuring thing she had ever seen. They both were both afraid, but she decided right then that they could be afraid together. She curled herself forward, laying a hand on his cheek and he leaned into it, closing his eyes. 

“I’m not running,” Eres said softly. She wanted to say The Words, but her world had a habit of going armageddon whenever she spoke them. She did not want that jinx on this. On him. He was too important. 

He glanced up fast, eyes full of a look that was hard to understand; tender, but sad. The look shifted after a moment into something darker, something that spoke to the want pooled in her gut at the sight of him half-naked between her legs. 

Fire ripped through her, suddenly emanating from the hand he had on her stomach. Warm, rolling waves of magic, rippling into the core of her. She gasped at the blaze and fell back on the bed, powerless to move against the heat filling every inch of her. 

He buried his face between her thighs, no doubt aware that the cloth between them would only drive her wild. And it did. Eres tried to sit up, to possibly yank down her damned smalls, to do anything, really, besides fruitlessly writhe under his touch, but the magic pouring into her limbs weighed them down with heat and fogged her mind like breath on glass. 

Solas drew back, looking up at her from between her legs with fevered eyes and a smirk that let her know he had no intentions of making it that easy for her. 

He started kneading the muscles of her thigh with strong fingers in time to the magic pulsing from the hand over her core, moving up higher, but stopping just short of putting any sort of pressure where she sorely wanted it. His mouth followed in the wake of his hand, up one side, down the other, pointedly ignoring how her hips bucked as he skirted over the edges of her small clothes. He repeated the process until she was completely convinced that he was only planning to torture her along with the heated tides of energy still pulsing out from his hand. By the time he actually pulled off her underthings, Eres was practically panting with need. Creators, she wanted him - had wanted him for far too long.

He hovered, letting his hot breath blow onto her, still not touching. Eres groaned and mumbled a curse, earning herself another huff of teasing air, controlled and close. So damned close. Just as she braced for the next roll of magic kneading its way out from his hand and through her self-control, he ran his tongue over her. 

She nearly came off the bed. 

His splayed palm held her firmly down as a heavier wave of magic smoothed away the sharp spike of tension; the heat relaxing the muscles drawn taught, but driving her mind further and further into a haze. 

Solas gripped her leg with his free hand, bringing it up over his shoulder and dragged her hips closer, keeping her from twisting away from his mouth as her back arched of its own accord. She crushed the scratchy wool blanket into her in fists as he started to swirl his tongue in the right place, but just a little too slow. She tried to call out in protest to the taunting rhythm set by the magic and matched by his mouth, but somewhere between her brain and her throat, the sound she had intended to make turned into a whimper. Lightning danced across her vision and her eyes fluttered closed as she focused on the sensation of his hot mouth on her and his fingers digging into her skin. Solas’ breathes were coming sharper now; the only sounds in the room besides the whistling wind through the mountains outside and her own mix of breathy, desperate moans. 

Time began to move in odd bursts as she gave herself over completely over to the pleasure and frustration burning in her veins. A steady, low rumble was building in her core. Not the fast, quick bursts of need that the magic kept pushing down and adding to the furnace - this was something deeper, primal. Solas lifted the hand that had been on her stomach, and for a brief moment Eres had a reprieve from the steady rhythm of his magic. Then, just below where his tongue, teeth, lips were driving her mad, he slipped his fingers into her, curling them upwards. Instantly that hot, heady magic started up again, but this time it was inside, sending direct pulses of energy into her as he pushed in and out, gaining speed. All of her worries and fears and thoughts - all of them - burned to ash in a blaze of raw desire. Her legs were shaking; her whole body was shaking, but his arm still held her mercilessly down on to the bed, stopping her thrashing hips from losing contact with his mouth. 

“Gods… please,” she half-begged, voice raw. She thought she might actually lose her mind if he didn’t follow through on the teasing soon. Then she stopped thinking much at all.

Solas’ careful pace took a sharp upturn and he bore down on her, relentless. The low rumble in her belly turned into fever pitch, spreading through her chest, her legs, her mind until in one more driving burst of heat she cried out and every muscle in her body clenched. Spasms of deep, deep relief zinged through her and she started to ride out the wave of satisfaction, expecting to have a moment to regain her composure.

Wrong. Solas didn’t stop. Didn’t let up on the manic pace. The pulse of the magic tore through her already over-heated body and the pressure rapidly started building again, more intense, heightened by the waves of agonizing pleasure still pinging around her. She was dizzy, disoriented, caught between two rolling storms, trapped in them both. He worked every last inch of her into the same curled tension that she had so briefly escaped. Eres wasn’t sure if she had ever stopped screaming or if this was just a continuation of her previous one. She writhed on the bed, her lower half firmly pinned by his arm, back arching, heart beating too fast. After what could’ve been a century or potentially only a handful of seconds his teeth grazed her and her world exploded once again in the best possible way. 

Before she even had a moment to catch her breath the mattress dipped and he pushed himself up over her, stopping to press a kiss onto her heaving chest. He held her legs apart even as she trembled and tried to curl up against the wild spasming of her own body. In one quick move his hips rocked forward. Eres cried out wordlessly as her muscles gripped around him, still far, far beyond her control. He was so much bigger than the two fingers that had gotten her into this state and the sheer pressure of him over and in her was enough to draw out her delicious delirium.

She barely noticed that Solas stayed still for a moment, blowing out a long, ragged breath and running a hand down the sweat-drenched skin between her breasts. Slowly, he began to move in and out, sending shockwaves through her with each gentle thrust, rocking her whole body. 

Once her head stopped spinning, she dazedly reached up, running her fingers along the sharp line of his jaw, down over his neck and chest, moving to trace over the deep lines of his straining biceps as he held himself up off of her. His eyes flickered open and met hers. The barely controlled need in them only had half a moment to register to her before that control broke. He drove into her, the slow, measured pace completely abandoned. Solas growled, low and guttural as he thrust, over and over, and the sound alone was enough to have Eres slipping closer to the edge again.

Everything, everything was done to excess. So unexpected from his usual calm, quiet demeanor, but so, so devastatingly, painfully, wonderfully _right._ Solas leaned down, capturing her mouth in a fierce kiss. She wrapped her arms around his back, drawing him lower so she could nip at his throat and inhale the heady scent of his burning skin. The wolf bone necklace dug into her chest, stuck in between their heated bodies as his movements took on an erratic edge, driving into her, pounding her into the bed. Eres closed her as stars danced over her vision, pushed again to her breaking point, completely overtaken by him. She screamed into the crook of his neck as the tension inside of her snapped and her overworked body convulsed around him. One of his hands clenched around her chin, dragging her face up to his. 

“Look at me.”

She forced her eyes open, focusing in on his through the waves of ecstasy. With one final thrust, Solas shuddered over her and snared her mouth with a kiss as he came. 

They both fell boneless to the bed, breathing hard.

After a bit, she cracked an eye open and stared at him.

“Holy shit.”

He laughed.

“I hope that is meant as a compliment,” he said, idly rubbing a thumb over her lips.

Eres tried to nod, but couldn’t lift her head up off of the pillow enough to make it a recognizable gesture. She was exhausted, though she had done little of the work, and so contented that she thought she might be able to lay there with him sprawled on top of her for the next century and be totally at peace, even with the bone necklace uncomfortably pressed into her ribs.

“Ar lath ma, Eres,” he said again and leaned back down into a devastatingly gentle kiss before rolling off of her and making to stand up.

She made a soft noise of protest and grabbed for his arm.

“Stay with me.”

He paused before sinking down next to her again, pulling her back against his chest and burying his face in her hair. 

Sleep was edging up around the corners of her mind, but she didn’t want to this moment to end - to wake up and find him gone. An idea tugged at her. 

She rolled over so that they were face to face. 

“Can you find me in the fade? Like, actually interact with me?”

“You would not remember if I did,” he said quietly, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. 

“That doesn’t matter.”

He raised his eyebrows. 

“I just… maybe I will remember? Or at the very least I’ll have a very good dream,” she said, unable to keep a goofy grin from spreading over her face. 

“It seems fairly self-serving for me to visit you while you are unaware,” he pointed out out, though not looking as disapproving as she had expected.

“Not if I invite you. And it didn’t stop you that first time.”

He chuckled.

“No, I suppose it didn’t. Alright, I will find you.”

“Good.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eres "eloquent as ever" Lavellan
> 
> Soooo.... ok. As I may have mentioned *cough*, I had no idea how to write this going in. I decided since this story, despite being in 3rd person, is extremely POV-heavy that I would focus moooostly on what was going through Eres' head the whole time. From my own experiences, I'm not ever thinking "his 'cock' is ramming into my 'vag'", mostly i'm focused on what it all actually feels like, so that's where I tried to go with this. 
> 
> Also, since it was their first time together, I tried to make it a healthy combination of both love-making and straight up rough fucking. The way I see it, they were both completely desperate for each other and both enjoy rough sex, but they also just found out that they're in love so it was a fairly intense moment. I didn't want to make them be super chatty.
> 
> Hooray for magic sex!


	25. Trap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 80k words HOLY SHIT

“Inquisitor?” 

Josephine rapped at the heavy wooden door again. Still no response. 

“Inquisitor, please. I’ve received urgent word about the House of Repose. Might I have a word?”

The Inquisitor had disappeared the afternoon before and hadn’t shown up to their morning nor their midday meeting today. Now she was in danger of missing their early afternoon meeting as well. Josephine glanced down at the missive in her hand for what must’ve been the hundredth time. 

 

_Lady Montilyet,_

 

_I have heard rumors regarding your family’s status in Orlais and the subsequent execution of your couriers as they moved to reestablish trade routes in Val Royeaux. Please, if you find it convenient, visit me at my estate and we shall discuss the potential of a mutual exchange of information. Leave word with my steward when you arrive and we shall have tea._

 

_Yours,_

_Comte Boisvert_

 

There was nothing for it. The Inquisitor needed to wake up, no matter how tired from her excursion to the Free marches she might still be. Josephine pushed open the door to Eres’ tower room and was momentarily blinded by a flash of blue light that must have come from the sun hitting the glass windows at an odd angle. 

“Josie!” Eres gasped, sitting up straight in the bed, completely naked.

Josephine froze. 

“Inquisitor! I am-! Oh my goodness! I am so sor-is that a tattoo?” She exclaimed, trying desperately to find anything, anything to say to alleviate her faux pas.

Eres looked down at her shoulder, still a little wild-eyed and shrugged, further emphasizing the... The... _nudity._

“Yep.”

“It… it doesn’t match the tattoos on your face. I would’ve thought…” Josephine said, eyes steadfastly locked on the inky design rather than on… _other things._

“No. It’s some sort of dwarven pattern. Actually, I need to talk to you and Leliana about that,” Eres said, pushing herself up off the bed. 

 Hastily Josephine turned to face the wall. Makers breath she needed to be more patient if this was the sort of situation her over-eagerness brought about. Horrifyingly inappropriate, though the Inquisitor at least seemed to be entirely unfazed by… by the _rudeness_ of it all. 

“Alright, Josie, you can stop blushing now,” Eres called after a moment.

Josephine turned, stammering, “N-no, I do not think the blushing will stop for quite some time, Inquisitor. Please forgive my intrusion. I received an urgent… Eres, are you listening?”

Eres had leaned back on her desk, now wearing a small robe for Josephine’s benefit, but her eyes kept flickering up to the balcony, distracted. Josephine followed her gaze. 

“Ah! I did not realize that we had left that tapestry showing the exalted march on the Dales. I’ll add removing that to the list of things to be done at once. Understandably you would not want that in your own bed chamber.”

She looked back to Eres who was slowly turning red. Odd. Eres was looking as if… oh! Josephine had spent years watching what people thought to be subtle trysts unfold in court and Eres had no such training in the game to hide behind. She slanted a sly smile Eres’ way and the blush deepened. Yes, definitely a tryst. Josephine loved a good tryst. She had wondered where Solas had disappeared off to after his announced return to Skyhold. He seemed… a little old for the Inquisitor, but then, maybe it didn’t matter if he made her happy. Josephine hoped that was the case. Eres deserved a little happiness.  

Eres cleared her throat and said, “Uh, don’t worry about it. I’ll think of something to put up there. Getting the walls fixed in this place is more important than my own tastes in art. What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Ah! Yes. I wanted to ask you if you would accompany me to Val Royeaux. Preferably sooner rather than later,” Josephine said, handing over the letter. Eres’ eyebrows drew together as she read it. 

She looked up and flatly said, “Trap.”

“What?” Josephine asked, shocked. 

Eres sighed and laid the piece of paper on her desk. 

“Trap. How would some minor Orlesian noble know of the deaths of your family’s couriers? Unless you’re personally well acquainted with this Comte, I suppose. Are you?”

“N-no.”

“Trap.”

“I see.”

“You still want to go, don’t you?” Eres asked after a silent moment, pinching the bridge of her nose. 

“You’re starting to know me quite well, Inquisitor. I would like to at least see what they are intending, and to find out more information if the circumstances lend themselves to our favor. In any case, we need to visit a tailor in Val Royeaux to have your dress fitted.”

“My what?” 

“Dress. You cannot show up to a ball at the Winter Palace wearing common clothing. Obviously. The Inquisition would be laughed out of Halamshiral.”

All of the color in Eres’ face slowly drained away. 

“I can’t… I’ve never… What if I break it?”

“You can’t break a dress, Inquisitor.” 

Josephine paused, thinking it through for a moment. “Well, at least not easily. Do be careful. A leader must lead in many ways, but killing won’t be the main way at the ball, hopefully. You’ll have to play the game well enough to see us through.”

“But… I…" Eres sputtered. Then her shoulders sagged. "Alright. Give me an hour and I’ll meet you down in the Great Hall.”

“Thank you, Inquisitor!”

Josephine hastily bowed out of the room, immeasurably pleased that there had not been a fight over the dress. She paused a moment at the top of the stairs once the door had swung closed and heard Eres ask, “Will you come with me?”

A deep voice replied, “It would not be wise to let our relationship become public knowledge.”

Josephine started to blush again when Eres said, “I don’t care.”

She took off, not wanting to intrude even more than she already had. My, my how a trip to the Free Marches could change everything. Solas was correct, however. There would be a staggering amount of damage control to do if it was discovered that the Inquisitor was involved with an elven apostate. It had taken much for Eres herself to be accepted, the public opinion being what it was about the Dalish. But for a wild Elven mage, unmarked by Andraste to be viewed favorably? Nearly impossible. A shame, really. When Josephine had caught them together in Solas’ study weeks ago they had been rather adorable. Sadly, adorable was not something the head of the Inquisition could afford to be in the public eye. 

They met in the Great Hall as planned, Josephine having collected up both Dorian and Madame Vivienne with promises of influence over how the Inquisitor was to be presented at Halamshiral. They had both jumped at the idea, but upon finding out that the other was attending immediately began shooting glares at Josephine, obviously wounded that she would not single them out as the sole voice of fashion reason. The glares were nothing, however, to the looks on their faces when Solas joined their party.  

“What is this whole look of yours about?”

 **“** I’m sorry?” Solas asked, snapping his attention to Dorian. Solas had walked up to their group from the rotunda room, but Josephine would’ve put money down that his head had still been in the tower with the Inquisitor. 

 **“** No, that OUTFIT is sorry. What are you supposed to be? Some kind of woodsman? Is this a Dalish thing? Don't you dislike the Dalish? Or is it some kind of statement?”

 **“** …No.”

 **“** Well it says ‘apostate-hobo’ to me.”

“’Unwashed apostate-hobo’, more specifically,” Madame de Fer added with a sniff of disapproval. “You smell as though you’ve been trekking around the countryside for weeks.”

“Perhaps because I have been, First Enchanter. Unlike those of us in present company content to stay in the castle and not assist with any actual fighting.” 

“Please, is this kind of talk truly necessary?” Josephine asked plaintively. Maker, if this was to be the tone of the trip…

Dorian cracked a smile at her, but Vivienne only looked down her nose with slitted eyes. 

“Since our friend here deemed that dreadful wolf pelt necessary, I’m afraid it is, Lady Montilyet,” Dorian said, in a slightly warmer tone. “We are, after all, on a quest of fashion.”

“Also a quest of killing assassins,” Eres added as she walked up to join the group, now fully clothed and armored. “Try not to forget the most important part, you two.”

Dorian tipped his head back and laughed. “Oh please, Inquisitor. We kill things every day, but putting you into a dress? Surely one of the most dangerous tasks we’ve ever faced.”

Eres mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like agreement with Dorian before sidling over to Solas. She glowered around at everyone and ran a hand over the fur he had slung over his shoulder. 

“I like his wolf pelt. It looks comfortable. Warm. You all need to calm down.”

Solas said nothing, clasping his hands behind his back, but Josephine thought she could see the ghost of a smile threatening to break its way free. Josephine herself had to fight to keep one from spreading across her face. Love at a time like this… she shook her head to clear away such thoughts. This was not one of Cassandra’s naughty books - she should not be assuming too much about what had developed between their Inquisitor and Solas.

“And that is exactly why we’re coming along, Darling. Clearly, you need help,” Vivienne said, pressing her palm to her forehead.

“True,” Dorian agreed. “If he’s an apostate-hobo, you’re something of a pirate-bum. Though I suppose you’ve washed.”

“Hey! There’s nothing wrong with pirates!”

Josephine coughed loudly.

“Yes, well, I imagine we can iron out all of the details once we are presented with fabric options. Shall we depart?”

Children. They were all children. This was going to be a very, _very_ long journey. 

They reached Val Royeaux in a day and a half of travel, even with the steeds Master Dennet had provided. Seeing the the lovely painted buildings at long last was a relief. Josephine had not known how much more of the mages’ bickering she could have stood. Solas, thankfully, had seemed perfectly content to ride at the front with Eres and ignore, for the most part, the pointed jabs spoken loudly enough for him to hear. Josephine herself had nearly called the whole blighted endeavor off when Dorian and Vivienne had started in on Antiva the night they had spent camping. No one talked badly about her mother country. _No one._ She had channeled her rage into writing up several positively scathing reductions in their stipends and added in a requisition order for more plaid weave for the Inquisitor’s next batch of armor experimentations. She may appear mild-mannered, but Josephine knew how to hit where it hurt.

They arrived at the western gate and to Josephine’s surprise, Scout Harding was standing outside waiting for them. 

“Inquisitor, Ambass-Josephine,” she said with a nod. “Lady Nightingale sent me ahead. Said you were anticipating some trouble. She wanted a known Inquisition agent to scope out the Comte’s estate since her Val Royeaux agents are deep cover.”

“She sent you alone?” Josephine gasped. Harding was undeniably capable, but to be sent alone into the House of Repose’s territory… She was going to have words with Leliana. 

“Yes, Am-Josephine,” Harding said with a small smile. To Eres she said, “Definitely a trap. Word from the servants is that the Comte hasn’t been seen in a few days, but he never informed anyone he was leaving.”

“Alright. Thanks, Harding. Are you staying around Val Royeaux or heading back to Skyhold?” Eres asked, sliding down off her horse.

“Crestwood, ma’am. Wanted to get a camp set up for when you go to meet Hawke.”

“Sounds good. See you there.”

“Harding, would you care to accompany us while we’re here? You must have need of a break before undertaking another long journey, I'm sure,” Josephine offered quickly. It hardly seemed fair for their lead scout to be shipped off to all the corners of Thedas without a moment’s rest. Yet another thing she would be having words with Leliana about. 

Harding looked up at her, surprised.

“I’d… better not. Crestwood is going to take a while to get to, so I should probably start moving. Thank you, though, Josephine.”

Josephine sighed. “I see. Well, safe journey.”

They set off to the Comte’s mansion. It was a large house, but situated only in the passable part of town - too near the docks to avoid that distinctive fishy smell. A steward opened the door and ushered them in and Josephine noted that her companions surrounded her in tight formation as they were escorted up to a sun-dappled, open air patio. It looked like it would’ve been quite pleasant had they visited under any other circumstances.

“Welcome, my friends,” said the masked man lounging at a table laden with small sandwiches and tea. 

“Thank you for seeing us, Comte Boisvert,” Josephine replied, willing her voice not to shake.

“The honor is mine. Please, sit. It’s an honor to assist two such distinguished guests… and their friends? I had not expected so many for tea.”

“Please, tell us what you know.” Eres cut in. She grabbed one of the filled tea cups, but did not sip, instead looking at the “comte” expectantly. The others followed suit, going through the motions of a tea party with none of the the actual imbibing.

“Straight to business then? After the murder of Lady Montilyet’s people, I don’t suppose I can blame you.”

He slid a piece of paper across the table. Josephine glanced over at Eres before reading out “The House of Repose is hereby sworn to eliminate anyone attempting to overturn the Montilyet’s trading exile in Orlais.”

“Overly complicated assassination plots are a part of Orlesian politics, I take it?” Eres asked, taking the paper from Josephine.

“They’re all too common, I’m afraid.”

“The contract was signed by a noble family. The Du Paraquettes,” said the “Comte”.

“But the Du Paraquettes died out as a noble line over 60 years ago!” Josephine pointed out, frowning up at the assassin. History haunting her even after all of this time… It hardly seemed fair. Especially when the Du Paraquettes likely no longer even remembered buying the contract.

“Indeed, but the contract was signed 109 years ago.”

Eres pinched the bridge of her nose and muttered, “Orlais” under her breath. “This is ridiculous. Look, we know you’re not the Comte. So would you like to make an attempt on Josephine’s life or can we just move onto the killing you part?” She asked, giving the assassin a hard look. 

“I- what?” he stammered, rising to his feet. 

Dorian and Solas rose as well, blocking his path. 

“Inquisitor, he came to speak with us. Business is business with these types of things,” Vivienne admonished. 

“Quite right,” the assassin sniffed, drawing himself up and glaring as best he could from under his mask. “The contract on Lady Montilyet’s life is so unusual, we felt the courtesy of an explanation was in order.”

“Vivienne is right, Inquisitor,” Josephine added hastily. “I would prefer not to shed blood over a man doing his job.”

“He knows the risks inherent to his job, I should think,” Dorian said, calling up light to the end of his staff. 

“Please! No! Let’s just… let him go. Please.” 

The idea of watching this man fall to the stone floor made her feel slightly queasy, regardless of whether he had planned that for her in his stead.

Eres studied her face for a long moment before she said, “Fine. Let him go.”

The assassin bowed low to Eres and said, “Good day, Your Worship. My lady, I pray we never meet again.” 

He took off without a backwards glance. The door swung closed and everyone relaxed their stances. 

“Well, at least we know what we’re dealing with,” Josephine said, attempting to lighten the dour atmosphere.

“I don’t know, Josie,” Eres said, looking back at the closed door. “Maybe they’re just supremely professional, but why would the House of Repose have the idea to dig up a contract from a century ago in the first place?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oOoook. So. Let me start by saying that I'm sorry I took so long to write this. 
> 
> I had to back down from the intense emotion stuff (no matter how much I love it and writing it) so I could get things going again story-wise. I thought a rug-pull of the perspective would be a fun way to do it. Hopefully it wasn't too much of a bummer having me switch over to Josie. Also, apparently every advisor is going to see Eres naked via barging into her room. Cullen’s turn will be super awkward, undoubtably. 
> 
> ...I've watched Serenity too many times.


	26. Taste

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a darker chapter. Kinda.
> 
> From Project Elvhen by Fenxshiral:
> 
> "ara da’lenetun"  
> My little shit person
> 
> "Nuva mar’edhis banafelas i miol’en av ra"  
> May your dick rot and the insects eat it. 
> 
> "Din'el"  
> an emphatic "no". I'd imagine it'd come across as a sarcastic "definitely not" in this chapter.

“Mademoiselle, you _must_ suck in.” 

The austere old woman yanking at the strings of the corset Eres was in the process of being forced into glared at her in the mirror. Well, as much as anyone could glare from behind a mask. 

Eres glowered back into the eye holes. The humid air of Val Royeaux had long ago plastered Eres’ hair to her cheek and made her face as red as one of those dumb apple trees all of the city seemed to be so proud of. All in all, Eres thought her glare was rather more impressive with the on-the-edge, over-heated look she was sporting. Apparently the Orlesian woman did not agree.

“It is no use looking at me like that. You are to be presented as a lady, and ladies in Orlais do not get out of wearing corsets simply by disapproving of them.”

“Is everything going well in there?” Josephine called from the other side of the pink, gauzy curtains. 

Eres ground her teeth together as she heard Dorian snicker. 

“This has to constitute an assassination attempt, Josie. I can’t fucking breath!” Eres called out. 

The tailor gave a sharp yank and tsk of disapproval at Eres’ language and the air was driven from her lungs once again. This was ridiculous. She had been half-starved for a large portion of her life - in no way did she need to look any skinnier. 

“Can we just move onto the dress? Surely it’s tight enough now,” Eres said through bared teeth. 

The woman gave one last tug, sighing in exasperation. 

“Very well. Though I don’t know what I’ll be able to do for you. Lady Montilyet did not inform me ahead of time that you were so… marked everywhere.” She made a disgusted rumble deep in the back of her throat, gesturing at Eres’ shoulder. “I had planned for the Dalish face tattoo with the mask, but this?”

_“Thought you said she was Dalish. Looks like a regular knife-ear to me.”_

_Eres’ blur of days ground to a halt as her eyes focused in on the man casually leaning back in his chair regarding her. She suddenly became aware that she was standing on the table in front of him, frozen mid dance step. She wished very much that she had remained unaware. Everything was easier when she was unaware. Blankness. That was all she asked of life. Not some random man taunting her lack of vallaslin. Eres hopped down and scooped up another bottle of liquor before sauntering over to the man that had spoken and settling herself down on his lap. She took a generous swig of the foul liquor that had been her constant companion for the better part of the past year._

_“I can hear you, you know.”_

_Her head was pounding too much. The fire-lit, smokey room swirled on the edges of her vision, silhouetting the man she was seated upon. She took another gulp and regarded him as levelly as she could, wiping her mouth off on her sleeve._

_“Disappointed I don’t have the tattoos to prove it, ara da’lenetun?”_

_He raised his eyebrows at the language switch and shifted her closer._

_“Not if you keep speaking to me like that, little elf.”_

_Eres let her smile turn coy as the alcohol started to soften the rough edges of her mind again._

_ “Nuva mar’edhis banafelas i miol’en av ra, ” she said, leaning close to his mouth.  _

_He glanced up behind her as a pair of arms slipped around her shoulders._

_“What did she say?” He asked, amused._

_“Do I look like an elf to you?” Taegin asked, her sultry voice turning the air into caramel. Eres loved her voice. She could listen to Taegin talk for days uninterrupted and be completely at peace. “Are you really doubting me already, Roger? Tsk tsk. We are not off to a good start if you can’t even take my word on the heritage of my employees.”_

_Taegin’s fingernails dug into the skin of Eres’ chest and she added, “Surely she said nothing rude.”_

_“Din’el,” Eres said, leaning forward to set the bottle down on the table before grabbing the man’s bristly face between her hands and pressing her lips to his. His whiskers scratched at her chin, but the man was skilled enough, she supposed. She began to lose herself in the ever-welcome mental haze once again, letting the night’s debaucheries wipe away the threat of unsafe thoughts. Once she had made herself blank again, she broke away from him and leaned back against Taegin, wishing that Taegin was in a less professional mood. However tonight was, she remembered, a rather important night. Unless she was very much mistaken, the man gripping her ass was a templar from the mage’s circle. Lyrium business was always dull business for Eres. No action required besides staying out of the way as much as possible. It also meant that she was not being paid, which was never a good thing._

_The bard in the corner, half-hidden through the walls of smoke switched to a livelier tune and Eres slid herself off the man and out of Taegin’s grasp. Better to let them do business and stop discussing her lack of vallaslin._

_Shit._

_Thoughts of wild forests and rolling plains rattled around her no-longer reeling head. Thoughts like those lead to other thoughts, and the phantom aches crackled through her chest. She made her way to the stairs, grabbing a bottle on the way, up and out of their friendly neighborhood, scum-of-the-earth tavern. Skogs called out to her as she passed, but it was no good. She needed the tang of fresh air._

_“Where’s she going?” The templar asked as she fled._

_“She’ll be back,” Taegin said dismissively._

_Yes. Yes she would be. There was no where else for her to go. Eres slid down the wooden wall of the shack that served as a front for the illegal bar and gulped at the crisp night air, rolling the bottle between her palms. She been about to get her vallaslin before she left her clan. How much a year could change things._

_Elgarn’an? No. Probably Mythal. When in doubt, Mythal was what Deshanna advised. The fact of the matter was that Eres had not felt any sort of connection to one particular god. Now she was fairly certain that they would all be horrified by her devotion, even if it actually meant something and they weren’t locked away. Fen’Harel maybe._

_She snorted. Gods that would be something. Did Fen’Harel even have vallaslin? She wondered if even he would be as disgusted by her as she was by herself. Probably. Trickster used to be kind of her thing, but now? Now she was mostly just a mess. She tipped the bottle over and let the liquor trickle out into the dusty ground, meditatively watching the slow pour of the liquid melt into a small puddle of alcholic mud._

_“Hey! Don’t waste it!” shouted a withered old man, stepping out of the shadows nearby. She looked up, startled, but stopped her pouring. She held the bottle out to him as he came across the moon dappled ground and he snatched it from her hand. He took a huge drink and looked down at her, smiling._

_“Andraste bless you, my friend.”_

_“Mythal enaste,” she said, half to see if he would even react._

_He grunted at her words and walked back into the shadows taking Eres’ booze with him. She didn’t protest. There was no point. He looked like he needed the drink more than she did._

_Dirthamen? What secrets did she even have? Eres had always thought that vallaslin in dedication to Dirthamen felt vaguely counter-productive. How would announcing to the world that you had secrets really honor a god concerned with keeping them? No. Falon’Din was probably the most apt, though he was a friend of the dead. Eres was only good at spreading death, not revering it. Death was something she did not have any respect for - not when it fell where it wished on people undeserving of it. She was likely only alive now because she so thoroughly wanted to show the world just how much contempt she felt for death. The number of situations that should’ve killed her were beginning to pile up._

_She traced her finger in circles around the muddy spot next to her, contemplating._

_No, the Creators were no longer for her. This was her home now and there was no room for her Elvhen gods. Truthfully there was no room for any gods. Not with the sort of work she had taken to recently. Perhaps she should get dwarven runes tattooed across her face instead… Skogs would actually do it too. It would be the pinnacle of a “fuck you” to her old life… A permanent sign of leaving those memories behind…_

_Eres pushed herself up the wall, straining her thigh muscles to give herself another moment to think. What would she get traced onto her face? A word? A pattern to match the casteless dwarves that had found their way to Ostwick?_

_She lurched into the shack, down the steps leading to the bar and Skogs._

_“Want to give me some vallaslin?” She asked, drawing to a halt in front of the bearded man._

_He looked up at her, mid-hand of Wicked Grace. Brewer glared at the interruption and Hilda surreptitiously tried to look at his hand while he was distracted._

_“Can’t never seem to draw swirly bits. Hands like hams, Lass,” Skogs said, grinning._

_“I don’t want anything elfy. Just give me one of those dwarven ones.”_

_He leaned back in his seat, surprised._

_“Now why would you want that?”_

_Taegin appeared at Eres’ side, crossing her arms._

_“Have you lost your mind?” she asked._

_“Yes."_

_“An elf with dwarven tattoos on her face will be of no use to me. Too recognizable. Don't be stupid. Do your shoulder if you must.”_

_A shoulder was better than nothing, Eres supposed, though the taste of blasphemy would be lost. Taegin would do it too. Kick her out. Kill her even. They may have started sleeping together recently, but Eres could not expect her to keep around dead weight._

_“Fine. Shoulder. Skogs?”_

_He finished out his hand of Wicked Grace, then had her take off her shirt and lay down on the bar table right there in the middle of their little party. Taking a needle and a pot of ink, he set to work. By the time he was done her skin felt raw and she had spent too much time laying still to keep doubts from stirring restlessly in her mind._

_She left the bar and walked to their hideout, wanting a mirror. Standing alone in the dim room she twisted so that she could see the whole thing. Perfect geometric patterns adorned her skin in a black cascade of runic swirls. Skogs was apparently more talented than she had expected._

“It’s beautiful,” Eres said quietly, looking at her reflection in the trifold mirror. She looked like a lady. That had never happened to her before, nor had it ever even occurred to her as a possibility. How strange to see herself like this. The inky skin showing under the embroidered gold did nothing to lessen the effect in Eres’ eyes. If anything, it was an anchor point - a reminder that she was still her no matter how much the humans dressed her up. She gulped, fighting down the strange mix of sadness and excitement that wracked through her. She had never worn anything, _anything_ like this before. 

The tailor tsked again. 

“I suppose I’ll have to add on a covering for the neckline now.”

“No,” Eres said over her shoulder as she drew back the curtain and walked out to her waiting companions. 

They all snapped to attention, staring at her avidly, saying nothing. 

Eres’ eyes found Solas’. 

“Well, this is the one,” she said, holding his gaze. “Thoughts?”

“My dear you haven’t even tried any others!” Vivienne said, aghast.

“Inquisitor you look lovely!” Josephine squealed, rushing forward to examine the bead work covering the bodice. 

“Why bother bringing us along if you were just going to pick it out yourself? Not that I don’t like it. It has… flash. Flare,” Dorian said, trying to look annoyed, but failing to hide a grin.

And Solas only looked. Looked like he was trying to sear the image into his mind. Looked at her like he had the other night when he had told her he loved her. 

She turned up the corner of her mouth at him and half-shrugged, wishing that they could have a few moments alone again. Or that he would change his mind about her “respectability” regarding their… whatever they were. She didn’t want to have to hide that they were together, no matter how logical a way of dealing with their situation that might be. For instance, now she could really use a hug and a few whispers of reassurance. Rarely was she even thinking about how she looked past clean/not clean, but somehow the dress, while being utterly perfect, demanded that she somehow live up to it. It was an odd feeling.

“I don’t need to see any others. This is the one,” she repeated for Vivienne and Dorian’s benefit, turning in a slow circle and letting the beading catch the light. 

The tailor fussed around, taking measurements and rapidly conversing with Josephine in a string of shop talk about the pricing of the thing. Eventually she had Eres go back into the changing room and slip back into her comfortable, normal clothes. They left the shop after another quarter of an hour of haggling, stepping out into the long shadows being thrown in the hot Orlesian sunset. 

Solas made his way to her side as they walked through the streets and said in an rumbling undertone, “You looked dazzling today.”

Eres slanted a look over at him and started to flush as the red light of the setting sun illuminated the tender way he was gazing at her. 

“And now that I’m not in the fancy dress?”

“Even more so.” 

Feeling bold, she asked, “And if I was in nothing at all?”

Solas’ eyes shone in the last bits of light, but he kept his neutral expression carefully in place as he replied, “Best of all, Vhenan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my tastes in ball gowns never really evolved past Belle from Beauty and the Beast. I don't particularly see that as a problem. Here's what I pretty much am picturing for [Eres’ dress](https://41.media.tumblr.com/5e33ac4d1a3574cdc2a807283746a501/tumblr_nnqhg1Cya31ridrdeo1_500.jpg)  
> (It's a Sarah Burton for Alexander Mcqueen dress - god help me their 2010-present stuff is the light of my fashion inspiration life)
> 
> Also, as a side note, [day to day wear for Eres](http://www.mediacircus.net/roadtoeldorado__3.jpg) I picture to be something kinda like Miguel from Road to El Dorado hahah. Kind of a big shirt, but with boots instead of loafers
> 
> ALSO Finally got around to drawing her [tattoo](http://maizzycakes.tumblr.com/post/119813202837/you-maizzy-are-you-ever-gonna-draw-a-non-sketchy) NSFW due to Lavellan butt.
> 
> Not sure if this is interesting to anyone besides me ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> Not gonna lie, I was listening to Chandelier by Sia the whole time I was writing the flashback. It fits pretty well for my head cannon because Eres was a HOT MESS the first year and a half she spent away from her clan. HOT MESS.


	27. Plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohhh man. So many things! 200 KUDOS YESSSSSS! That was super exciting to see happen. Also, 4300 reads which is... insane. Crazy. Thank you all so much!
> 
> Lots of Elvhen in this chapter. Sorry if that's off-putting to any of you. I just think it ~enhances~ the effect.
> 
> Juvaras em tel’gasha i’tel’na amahn  
> You will leave me incomplete without you here
> 
> Ar tel’harthas mar dirth  
> I don’t understand your words
> 
> ma nuvenin  
> as you wish
> 
> Elgar’daris  
> demonic spirit
> 
> da’fen  
> little wolf
> 
> falon  
> friend

_“Will you come with me?” Eres asked. She looked up at him with a lopsided smile that was a new addition to his mental observations of her. He loved it all the more for its rarity. It did not, however, make her request sensible._

_“It would not be wise to let our relationship become public knowledge.”_

_“I don’t care.”_

_Solas leaned down on the bannister, forearms in danger of splinters from the rough wood, and tried to keep the sudden swell of emotion that threatened to eclipse his better judgement under control. Technically it was already too late for that, but even though he had given into temptation he could still do Eres this one small service. He would not ruin her reputation along with her life._

_She was a vision, silhouetted by the late morning light, glinting halos formed by the fly aways of hair from their indulgences before the Ambassador had burst into the room. The little bubble of intensity that had surrounded them since his return to Skyhold had popped when that door had flown open and now he was unsure of how to proceed. It had been a nice bubble. He would’ve gladly stayed in it until the world crumbled to ash around them, so it was perhaps for the best that they had been interrupted._

_He climbed down the ladder from the balcony, but did not approach her, averting his eyes away from the maddeningly tempting sight of her disarray. Instead he went about the room, collecting up the items of clothing that she had not tossed up to him while the ambassador had been blushing at the wall, discomfited by Eres’ lack of modesty._

_“You should care,” he said, snatching his belt from where it had become lodged between a storage crate and the wall._

_“Probably,” Eres agreed, “But I don’t. I don’t know… I can’t just pretend…” She blew out a breath and out of the corner of his eye he saw her shake her head. “You love me,” She said, pointing an accusatory finger and sounding half-confused._

_He chuckled._

_“Yes.”_

_“But you don’t want to be seen with me.”_

_“What I want is irrelevant. What you need is for me to not be seen with you. I am an apostate and you are the public face of the Inquisition. Many would be discomfited if they learned the Inquisitor was involved with one who consorts with ‘demons’ or potentially practices blood magic. The world might think I hold some arcane sway over you and by proxy, the Inquisition.”_

_She snorted._

_“If only they could’ve seen you when we liberated Wycome. That would’ve turned them off from any idea that you’re secretly controlling me.”_

_He smiled to himself as he shrugged into his shirt._

_“Likely true,” he said._

_Once his shirt was on, he finally looked at Eres again, feeling that the clothing offered some small form of resistance to the idea of dragging her back into the bed for the rest of the century. Her eyebrows were drawn together and her arms were gripped tightly across her chest. Immediately he understood his mistake._

_He quickly crossed the room and drew her into his arms, lightly kissing the top of her head. She relaxed enough to clutch at the back of his shirt instead of herself, but there was anxiety in her touch - the air thick with it._

_"Eres,” he said, tilting her chin up so that she met his gaze. “Do not mistake my unwillingness for public displays as a lack of interest. Nothing could be further from the truth. Your protection is far more important than my personal desires.”_

_After a long moment of staring into his eyes, she quietly said, ”Last chance to run, Solas.” He was alarmed to see the lines of worry on her face as she echoed his statements from the day before. He leaned down and gently kissed her, wanting desperately to take away that worry._

_"I could hardly leave you now, Vhenan."_

_But it was the later that he could not promise to her._

The next few weeks were some of the happiest he could ever remember. Their time together was unfortunately limited, but the small moments they stole while wading through the Fallow Mire or the nights Eres crept into his tent in Crestwood were more blissful than he could have ever anticipated. The smallest actions took on new light, whether it was Eres flicking away a piece of undead intestine from his shoulder or simply falling asleep with a warm, real person next to him each night. Still, the ever-present weight of the truth he was keeping from her weighed heavily on his mind. Everything would change and that the change would not be for the better. How could it? She was raised to believe he destroyed a world, which was not entirely untrue. Each time she laid a hand on his while passing over a new stock of health potions and each smile she gave him as she brushed past to collect ever more elfroot was all the more precious because of the borrowed time in which they existed. Happy moments, shining against the larger backdrop of the inevitable. 

He knew before he had even returned to Skyhold that if he was to be with Eres she would need to know, but as of yet there had not been a time that had felt right to tell her. Likely there would never be a time that felt “right”. Still, the moment most certainly was not when she was coming back from her lessons in Orlesian politics with Josephine and the First Enchanter after a hard day spent traveling back to Skyhold. 

Solas had crept up to her room to wait for her return, filling the time by painting a new mural where the rather gruesome tapestry of the Exalted Marches had been. 

The door slammed open and Eres came stomping in as much as was possible for her small frame. The footfalls were not particularly impressive, but they reverberated around the room well enough to make her point. He turned to look for her, but the angle of the balcony hid her from view. Instead, a heeled shoe went flying across the room and smacked into her desk with a loud crack. 

“Lesson went badly, I take it?” He asked. 

There was a soft intake of breath and Eres stepped back far enough to be in view. 

“Fenedhis, you scared me,” She said, clutching her chest. “Didn’t realize you would be in here.”

“Shall I leave?”

“No! Of course not.”

She threw the other shoe across the room before climbing the ladder and coming to join him under the half-finished mural. She wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned up to put her chin on his shoulder. A surprisingly comfortable gesture. He relished the feel of her breath on his neck and the soft press of her body against his back. 

“You are an amazing painter. This is beautiful.”

“Thank you, though it is not yet complete,” he said, caught off-guard by the honest compliment. Though he knew he was skilled, it was nice to hear his work praised, especially as it came from her. He laid his paintbrush down and turned to draw her into a kiss, catching her face in his hands. He had seen her only a couple of hours earlier on their long trek back, but it had been days since they had been properly alone together and it would be days more until they had another chance; the Inquisition’s delegation was to leave for Halamshiral tomorrow morning. Interesting, how days now felt as slow as they did; they used to pass in what felt like little more than a half-heart beat. 

“Juvaras em tel’gasha i’tel’na amahn ,” he whispered against her lips. 

“ _Ar tel’harthas mar dirth._ ” she whispered back, leaning away to smile up at him. 

He had gotten a paint smudge on her cheek and rubbed at it with a thumb. 

“I said that I will miss you while you’re away.”

To his surprise, Eres took a quick step back, looking sheepish. 

“About that… I talked to Josephine and you’re coming to the ball too now.”

Solas narrowed his eyes at her. She had remained displeased about having to keep that they were together a secret, but surely she knew that it would be impossible for her to even be seen talking with him at the heart of the Orlesian political storm she was supposed to navigate through.

Eres threw her hands up in front of her, though she was smiling.

“I didn’t even mention it! Josephine _asked_ me if I wanted you to come. She knows. She has to know. Creators, she was so smug.”

“And you said yes?”

Her sheepish look slid back into place.

“Yes.”

Solas found himself to be less disapproving than he probably should have been. Truth be told, he was interested in the ball, if only to see if it would be Corypheus himself that showed up to cast Orlais into chaos. The idea of letting Eres face Corypheus without being present himself was unimaginable. He doubted it would happen, but there was always the chance. There was also the far less important, but still present fact that he would’ve given a great deal to see Eres in that dress once again. Aside from those two reasons, he enjoyed balls, even when they rapidly devolved as this one was likely to do. 

_“Oh reverent lord, honored elder of the Elvhen, I do beseech thee to slow the fuck down,” Felassan drawled, striding up to where Solas and Sylaise had frozen at his words. Sylaise looked ready to smite the man, but Solas tightened his grip around her waist and the tightly coiled energy around her relaxed._

_She glared up at Solas from under thick eyelashes._

_“Why do you allow this_ _slave_ _to speak to you in such a way? I would have his tongue out for the sheer gall of it.”_

_Felassan waggled his eyebrows at her, and said, “My lady, you could have any bit of me you wanted. Never mind just the tongue.”_

_She sniffed in disgust and Solas threw a look at Felassan._

_“Ohhh, come on. You know I’m only joking. She’s the one that started in with the bodily mutilation bit. I was only providing her with some more justification.”_

_“Remind me again why I invited you along to this?” Solas asked wryly._

_“Must be my roguish good looks and natural penchant for wit.”_

_Solas snorted._ _“Must be.”_

_Felassan would not be interrupting a private conversation with one of the evanuris if it was not import. Solas extricated his arm from around Sylaise's waist and took a step back from her._ _“Sylaise…” Solas started to say._

_She glared at him, before turning on her heel and stomping back in the direction of the ballroom._

_“You’re telling me what was more important than me later,” She called over her shoulder._

_Once she was gone and the two men were left alone in the glittering corridor, Felassan said, “Eeesh. I’m thinking you dodged an arrow there. She looks like the type to rip her mate’s head off once she was done.”_

_“She is certainly the type that will rip your head off if you even glance her way again. She knows you work for me, but that will only go so far,” Solas said with a grin, leaning back against a mosaic._

_“May the Dread Wolf never hear your steps_ _.”_

_Solas snapped his fingers and a bubble of protective magic encased them, blocking out any outside attempts at eavesdropping, whether through magical or mundane means. The code phrase had been implemented fairly recently, born of Felassan’s flair for the dramatics. He had, for the most part, been acting as a second in command - focusing on the actual organizing of their resources while Solas came up with the plans. Any of the agents that had joined their fledgling rebellion needed only to say that pass phrase to one another and it was understood that something important was to be discussed and needed to be discussed quietly._

_“Bit obvious we’re trying not to be over heard,” Felassan pointed out._

_Solas shrugged, “That does not change the fact that they still cannot, in fact, over hear us. Besides, in a place like this people are too bound by custom to question any of what I do. They will likely assume that I am about to reprimand you.”_

_“Fair enough. We’ve received word that Andruil entered Arlathan this evening.”_

_That made Solas stand up straight._

_“She’s back?”_

_“She’s back and nugshit crazy, which is probably the most important part.”_

_“It seems Daran was correct about what she’s been up to. Have our agents in her service follow her as best they can. I need to know what she’s intending.”_

_Felassan folded his arms. “It’s not quite in line with what they signed on for.”_

_Solas sighed and shifted his weight, foot to foot._  " _I' m aware, but it’s important. Volunteers only then. If she truly is unbalanced-“_

_The door at the end of the hall banged open. Andruil herself came stalking in, Sylaise in her wake looking worried._

_Solas flicked away the silencing bubble and turned to face them, assuming his casual stance against the wall once more. Felassan backed away, casting his eyes down. He might taunt Sylaise while Solas was present, but the air around Andruil was fairly crackling with power and he was smart enough to know that she would kill him without a second thought._

_“Andruil,”  Solas said, inclining his head._

_“Fen’Harel! That is your name now, is it not? It has been simply too long. My dear little sister tells me that you’ve been inquiring after me and I thought I’d come set your mind at ease.”_

_His mind, however, was not set at ease. She was looking practically ragged under the cleanly pressed gown. Small bruises and gashes covered her sickly pale skin and and her eyes shone with an odd fervor. He had never particularly liked Andruil, but this was a far different person from the woman that he had last seen. The change was not for the better._

_“Indeed, though I am not reassured by your appearance. Would you like me to heal your wounds?”_

_“No,” she snapped, tensing._

_Sylaise huffed and rolled her eyes._

_“I already asked her that, obviously.”_

_“What I would like,” Andruil purred, relaxing after a moment, “is for you to take a turn with me in the grounds, Fen'Harel. There is something I wish to discuss.”_

_Solas glanced at Sylaise, but she did not meeting his eyes. The use of his newest title was not particularly encouraging. Not when he was attending this party under the pretense of playing along with the Evanuris' game._

_“Ma nuvenin, I suppose,” he said, leaning up and offering Andruil his arm._

_They walked out past Sylaise, who didn’t say a word. Solas kept his power at the ready, prepared for an attack or whatever else she might hurl his way once they were alone. He did not for a moment expect that this unhinged version of the woman he had once known intended anything pleasant for him once they were far from the confines of social niceties, but he needed to find out what he could. All of the intelligence he had gathered pointed at trouble._

_The drew out into the grounds and Andruil tugged his arm, leading him towards the woods. Once they had walked deep, deep into the trees, she turned and flung her arms around his neck, kissing him with a staggering intensity. He was so caught off guard that it was a moment before he felt the iron lock of the restraining magic snap up around him._

_Andruil stepped back, smiling at him like a cat that had caught a mouse._

_“I had heard tell that my dear Sylaise had finally managed get her claws into you.”_

_He tried to smile pleasantly at her, even though his stomach was sinking as the magic he sent out to push at the invisible bindings did nothing to break them._

_“Don’t smile at me, Dread Wolf. She knows I’ve hunted you for far longer. And here I come back to see that the rumors were true, and that dear, dear Solas is prancing around the court with my little bleating halla of a sister. Pathetic.”_

_This was… not the direction he had expected the conversation to take. True, Andruil had pursued him for a time years ago, but this was… well, as Felassan had put it “nugshit crazy”._

_“What exactly do you intend to do here, Andruil? Tie me to your bed and bid me service you for a year and a day?” He asked, attempting to keep a cavalier facade in place until he could snap the bindings._

_She pulled a spear out of thin air and turned to him with a manic smile._

_“Hardly. That I needed to clear the air. This" - she hefted the spear - "is about your pathetic little attempt to undermine our empire."_

_A figure stepped out of the shadows and laid a hand on Andruil’s spear arm._

_“You are acting brash, Andruil. The plan was not to kill him yet.”_

_Andruil snarled, red light flickering from the spear as she jerked her arm free._

_“Back down, Anaris. Plans change.”_

_Anaris. Shit. Solas had recognized the man, but had very much wished that he had been mistaken. If Anaris was here, Andruil had indeed been prowling the Void._

_“Not this one,” said Anaris._

_Andruil let a wordless cry of frustration and made to lunge past him at Solas, but Anaris brought up a sword with lightning quick speed and met the stem of her spear with a clang that rang out through the woods._

_“So that’s it, is it? You would fight me over this waste of life?” She asked, wheeling on Anaris and dropping into a fighting stance._

_“Hardly. I am fighting you for trying to derail our plans,” he said with a leer. The shadows swirled around him, drawing up into whirling vortex, completely encircling him._

_They dived at each other and Solas redoubled his attempts to break the spell. He struggled and pushed at the magic, but it was no good. He could only watch… Watch and perhaps help the proceedings along._

_“Andruil’s never been one for melee fighting, Anaris,” Solas blithely observed through the clangs and cracks of metal and magic clashing. “Always forgets to strengthen the barrier around her hips. She is not even wearing armor there tonight.”_

_There was a cry of pain and through the storm of rippling magic Solas saw Andruil collapse to the ground, blood spilling out her side. Anaris stood, wiping his blade off on the fabric of his pants, staring down at Andruil’s limp form._

_Solas coughed, trying to draw the Forgotten One’s attention to him. If this plan was to work, Andruil would need to live up to her fearsome reputation, whether she was insane or not._

_“Well, it seems your victory is owed to me,_ _Elgar’daris.”_

_Anaris whirled around and stared at him, half-raising his sword._

_“What did you say, da’fen?”_

_Did everyone know that damnable nick name?_

_“Elgar’daris. It is what you are, is it not? And that clearly your life is owed to me. Andruil is not known for letting her prey live.”_

_“Prey? You are the one that she intended to hunt, falon," Anaris said with a sneer._

_Behind him, Andruil stirred on the ground, quietly reaching for her spear._

_Solas smiled his best dazzling smile at the unsuspecting man._

_“I am not your friend any more, Anaris.”_

_And Andruil drove up with her spear, pushing it between his ribs and piercing a lung. Anaris fell, breathing ragged._

_Solas let loose a concussive blast of magic, sending both of his captors into a deep sleep. He would not have been able to pull it off until they were so weakened, and it had been fairly touch-and-go for a few minutes there. With Andruil asleep her focus was no longer pointedly directed at the bindings and Solas finally managed to throw them off._

_“Holy shit!” Felassan squawked, stepping out from behind a pair of trees._

_“Heard all that?” Solas asked, walking briskly over to his friend._

_Felassan gulped. “Yeah.”_

_“Good. Go get Mythal. Tell her I sent you. Say something weighty-sounding, so she will know it is serious. Don’t let her refuse. Then tell her what happened. I have to stay here and make sure these two do not break the sleep compulsion.”_

_“R-right,” Felassan stammered, stumbling back towards the palace._

_Solas watched him go. Andruil had been right about one thing. There were forces in motion that none of them had conceived of, far past Solas' own underground rebellion. He turned to look at the Forgotten One asleep on the springy grass._

_This did not bode well._

One could never be sure where the events of a ball could lead. 

Solas swept forward to gather Eres in his arms again, dropping the argument completely. There were better ways to spend their rare time alone together then berating her for wanting to be with him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oooohkay. So I actually had this whole chapter written days ago, but kind of hated it? There was no 2nd flashback and it was pure fluff. Full disclosure: I'm a terrible fluff writer. Absolutely awful. My characters are always a little too snarky to properly pull off the mushy stuff, unless it's angsty fluff. I'm working on it, though. Anyway, I ended up moving this flashback up and I think it fits even better here than where I had it before! yusssss.
> 
> I've spent *a lot* of time pondering through what I think went down in Arlathan. Too much time probably. It was cool to finally start throwing it down in words. The last time I did was like chapter 3 hahah. Whoops. But I've been waiting to have a chance to adapt one of the Fen'Harel legends to something that sounds a little less legend-y and a little more realistic. So fun.


	28. Halamshiral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I... does anyone like Orlesians? I think not. I don't even think Orlesians like Orlesians.

“It is a great pleasure to meet you, Inquisitor Lavellan. Rumor has it you’ve freed the mages and adopted them into your own ranks. A deft political maneuver. Imagine what the Inquisition could accomplish with the full support of the rightful emperor of Orlais!”

Despite his mask, the leer was clear in the Grand Duke’s voice. Eres tamped down the urge to cross her arms over her sparkling, silk-covered chest and drew herself up into what she hoped still read as her Intimidating Inquisitor Posture despite the dress.

“And which one was the rightful one again? I keep getting them confused.”

“The handsome, charming one of course, my lady.”

Creators this was going to be a painful night. 

The Grand Duke continued, “I am not a man who forgets his friends, Inquisitor. You help me, I’ll help you. My lady, are you prepared to shock the court by walking into the Grand Ball with a hateful usurper? They will be telling stories of this into the next age.”

Eres glanced back at Josephine, who gave the barest hint of a nod.  Right. Of course Josie would want to go for even more of the “wow” factor. Well, if Josie wanted “wow”, she would be getting “wow”.

“I can’t imagine that crowd has seen anything better than us in their entire lives,” Eres said, attempting to sound glib. 

Gaspard closed the distance between them, placing a hand on the small of her back. “You’re a woman after my own heart, my lady. Shall we enter?”

He smelled of dried roses and liquor, which was pretty much how Eres pictured any Orlesian to smell at any given time. Were they wearing a mask? Yes? Probably smelled like dead flowers and booze. This was going to be a very, _very_ painful night.

She would have liked to have entered with her full entourage and not just Josephine, but if this was how the Grand Duke was going to play it perhaps it was better that Solas not be a witness. Eres could not afford to spurn Gaspard’s campy flirtations - not until the cards started to fall onto the table. Not having Solas’ eyes burning into her back while attempting to go along with the duke was fine by her. It had not been a pleasant experience watching him react to her involvement with Kynan and she couldn’t imagine it being any better here when she was already so on-edge.

He lead Eres up through the palace gates, murmuring warnings about the elven saboteurs lead by Briala the whole way. Eres stopped listening after his suspicions devolved into outright racism, focusing instead on not tripping up the stone stairs in her heeled shoes. Out of everyone at the ball, Briala was the one Eres had the most interest in meeting. Merrill had told her how the “ambassador” was rallying an underground elven resistance and Eres knew first hand about Briala’s control of the eluvians. Even as Cullen had advocated for the chevalier at her side and Josephine had lobbied for keeping Celene in power, Eres already knew how she would be playing the game this evening, and it would not involve giving murdering human nobles more power. As long as another person could hold down Orlais, Eres intended to make Celene pay for the purge at Halamshiral. She had not told anyone - not even Solas, but there were some injustices that could not be ignored.

Eres and the Grand Duke walked into a warmly-lit entrance hall, causing the whispers to begin in earnest. They had been a steady hushing rumble in the corners of Eres’ consciousness in the courtyard, but the open night sky had stopped most from being distinguishable to her ears. Now that they were inside, however, they were impossible to ignore; a demanding buzz flicking all around the high-ceilinged room like over-excited hummingbirds, sent from one human prick to the next.

“A savage rabbit!”

“She is walking in with the Grand Duke! How provocative!”

“What exactly is that mask supposed to be?”

“Hush. She looks lovely.”

That last one caught her attention and Eres swiveled her eyes to the side to see an older woman dripping with jewels chatting with a group of people. Interesting. Apparently her little costume had won over at least one Orlesian this evening. It was a rather killer dress. 

Gaspard marched her up to through the big doors leading into the candlelit ballroom and Eres sucked in a breath. It was huge. Filled to the brim with people. Gold and marble mutedly glittered under each chandelier and wall sconce, while the dress of the ladies sent shimmering sparkles dancing in their wakes. The entire place reeked of dried flowers. 

She sighed. 

_Orlesians._

“Grand Duke Gaspard du Chalons, accompanied by Lady Inquisitor Lavellan, daughter of…” He trailed off in his dictation to the Herald of the court and looked down at Eres pensively. “Well, her parentage would likely not turn any heads in either case.”

Eres rolled her eyes, grateful for the mask. There it was. It seemed these lords could not resist an opportunity to play up their own importance by putting down others.

Gaspard held out his arm once again and Eres took it. Behind them, the door to the ballroom admitted the rest of the Inquisition party. She looked over her shoulder and saw Solas, wearing the stock formal attire Josephine had settled on for those that were not interested in keeping up their standing in Orlesian society. He was also wearing the most ridiculous hat she had ever seen. She locked eyes with him and raised her eyebrows before remembering that she was masked, so the gesture went unnoticed. 

Gaspard leaned down, lips lightly brushing the curve of her ear for a moment and rumbled, “My Lady, we are both on the prowl this evening. Never let the prey see your back.” 

Eres jumped, shivering from the feel of the light touch on her skin, and quickly turned back around, but not before she saw Solas lift a brow at the Duke's actions, though. Great. She could feel his gaze on her, almost like a tangible touch as she replied, “Indeed, Grand Duke, though it would be unwise to count me among your prey tonight.” 

She slanted a look up at Gaspard and saw his eyes glitter with amusement. Bluff called. He might have thought her pretty enough, but the Grand Duke had other things on his mind this evening. He wanted her either infatuated or off her game; neither of which he would be getting. 

“Grand Duke Gaspard du Chalons, accompanied by Lady Inquisitor Lavellan,” called the herald, and Gaspard tugged Eres forward, leading her down the marble steps for all of the court to see. 

It was like being trapped in a fighting pit, only with lacy fans and masks instead of swords and shields. Her heart hammered as hundreds of eyes fixed on her and whispers erupted throughout the room. To combat the sudden dual sense of exposure and claustrophobia, Eres kept her gaze fixed on Empress Celene waiting for them at the long end of hall, staring down imperiously. It didn’t help much.

“Did you see their faces?” Gaspard murmured to her as he lead her forward.

Anxiety at the exposure of their little procession across the hall constricted her airway, so she couldn’t manage more than a slight nod.

Behind Eres, each of her advisors were announced, followed by Lady Cassandra Allegra Portia Calogera Filomena-“get on with it” Pentaghast; First Enchanter Vivienne and… Eres’ elven serving man Solas? She nearly tripped on her stilt-like shoes as she heard that particular title called out. Anger thudded through her veins, hot and bright, until she took a moment to realize that Solas must’ve chosen the title that would be announced. She blew out a short echo of a laugh, earning herself a slight tug on her arm from the Grand Duke. Of course Solas would pick something downplayed. They could hardly call out “The Inquisitor’s full-time fade expert and apostate lover”, even if that was supremely more accurate. 

After what felt like a dozen years, she finally arrived at the feet of Empress Celene. 

“Cousin,” Gaspard said with a slight bow.

“Grand Duke, we are always honored when your presence graces our court.”

To Celene’s credit, she didn’t even say that blatant lie through clenched teeth. Apparently one did not get to be Empress of Orlais without being a master at spinning well-crafted lies. Gaspard, however was not quite so elegant.

“Don’t waste my time with pleasantries, Celene. We have negotiations to conclude.”

Even Eres understood how utterly gauche that was for one Orlesian to say to another. Not that she particularly cared if Gaspard dug his own grave, but his lack of tact was something she would need to keep in mind. 

“We will meet for the negotiations after we have seen to our other guests,” said Celene, tone slightly frostier than it had been moments before. 

Gaspard did not reply, only sunk into a far more flourished bow than the one he had given Celene initially. He walked off, leaving Eres alone to say her first words to the woman she fully intended to let die this evening. 

“Lady Inquisitor, we welcome you to the Winter Palace. Allow us to present our cousin, The Grand Duchess of Lydes. Without whom this gathering would never have been possible.”

A pale woman with short, blonde hair stepped forward, holding her hands at the same uncomfortable angle Celene’s own wrists seemed to be locked in and inclined her head to Eres. “What an unexpected pleasure,” she said in a thick Orlesian accent, “I was not aware the Inquisition would be a part of our festivities. We will certainly speak later, Inquisitor.” 

“Your arrival at court is like a cool wind on a summer’s day, Inquisitor,” Celene continued as the Grand Duchess slunk away, presumably to talk to her brother. 

“I am delighted to be here, your majesty,” Eres said, dipping into the curtsy that Josephine had spent the better part of a day drilling into her head. 

“We have heard much of your exploits, Inquisitor. They have made grand tales for long evenings. How do you find Halamshiral?”

Eres decided tact was her friend with all of the eyes still lingering on her and settled for a simple, “I’ve never seen anything equal to the Winter Palace.” Which was true enough. It would be hard to find another such extreme example of how thoroughly her people’d had their world stolen from them. Still, though. That was the past. This was the now and it would not help the matter if Eres let her “savagery” show throw her painted and primped exterior. 

“We hope you will find time to take in some of its beauties. Feel free to enjoy the pleasures of the ballroom, Inquisitor. We look forward to watching you dance.”

Thus dismissed, Eres grabbed at her heavy skirt and quickly ducked into the safety of the general crowd. Before she had even gone six paces Leliana was at her side. 

“Inquisitor, a word,” she said, leading her back out to the vestibule. Once they had seated themselves on a pair of satin chairs away from the majority of prying eyes, Leliana asked, “What did the Duke say?”

“He points the finger at Ambassador Briala,” Eres said with an eye roll. 

“She certainly is up to something,” Leliana agreed. “But she can not be our focus. The best place to strike at Celene is from her side. She has an occult advisor. An apostate who charm-”

A woman swept up behind Leliana, Dark hair reflecting the candlelight in shining streaks.

“Surely you would not be referring to me, dear, _dear_ old friend,” the newcomer said in a slow, sarcastic drawl.

Leliana tensed, swiveling around on her seat. 

“Morrigan.”

“’Tis rather rude to go hurling around such wild speculations, especially in front of new company,” Morrigan said, turning to Eres. “Well, well, what have we here? The leader of the new Inquisition, fabled Herald of the faith. Delivered from the grasp of the Fade by the hand of Blessed Andraste herself. What could bring such an exalted creature here to the Imperial Court, I wonder? Do even you know?”

Taking her cue from Leliana, who had somewhat relaxed, Eres sat back in her chair and regarded the well-spoken woman. “We may never know. Courtly intrigues and all that,” Eres said nonchalantly. 

“Such intrigues obscure much, but not all. I am Morrigan, as your Lady Nightingale has said. I do hope we shall have an opportunity to speak further this evening. Perhaps when your views of me are done being further discolored, yes?” She threw a frigid smile Leliana’s way, before sweeping off towards the ballroom. 

Leliana fidgeted with the fingers of her glove. “Well… that went well,” she said mildly. 

“Old friend?” Eres asked. 

“We… traveled together. For a time. During the fifth blight.”

“Ah.” 

They sat in silence, each lost in thought. Eventually, Eres stood. 

“Well, I should start searching for hints of what’s happening.”

Leliana stood too. “Yes. If you find anything interesting about any of our honored fellow party-goers, do pass it along.”

“Will do,” Eres said, before heading for a new doorway. She had no idea where to start looking, but wandering until she saw or heard something seemed as good an idea as any. 

The long hall was deserted, aside from two elven servants talking in hushed whispers halfway down it. As she approached them, they immediately fell silent. How odd. It took Eres a moment to realize why they were glaring at her. She was one of them - the “big people” as Sera called them. For a moment, Eres’ world flipped itself upside down. She quickly walked past them, hating that her blatant finery swishing across the floor marked her as some how “above” the two women in the eyes of the Orlesians. She needed to get out. To find some air. 

Through the next set of doors, she drew up short at the sight of blood dribbled across the cold, marble floors. Her plan to find an outdoor area immediately slipped away. Glancing up and around, she was baffled to note that nobody else seemed to be noticing the blood. Nobody was cleaning it, nobody was commenting on it. She walked forward, hesitantly, eyes following the trail through the forest of legs down the long hall. It was a lot of blood.

“I do adore the heady blend of power, intrigue, danger and sex that permeates these events.”

Eres whirled around to see Solas leaning casually up against a wall, still wearing the ridiculous helmet. She quickly walked over to him, shoes clicking in a light staccato under her feet. 

“Fuck, you scared me. Did you see the blood on the floor tiles over there? How are people ignoring it?” Eres asked in a low voice, keeping an eye on the nobles scant meters away. She did not think they’d listen into a conversation between two elves, but one could never be too careful. 

“When there are so many other diversions? There are far more pleasant things to hold the Orlesian nobility’s attention than unclaimed blood. For instance, Lady Montilyet informed me that you are acting as a diversion for the Grand Duke this evening.”

She ground her teeth together, “Unwillingly. Nice of Josephine to let you know.”

“Was it meant to be a secret? None in Halamshiral can keep their eyes off of you.” 

His gaze held a strange glint as it swept down her body and Eres could feel a slight buzz of magic leak into the air, bathing her in warm tingling energy that electrified her nerve endings. 

“They’re just intrigued by the ‘savage rabbit’ elevated to power.”

“You are a form of distraction far, far beyond that, Vhenan,” he said,  leaning down to murmur right next to her ear. 

There was something different in the way he was holding himself and speaking here in these gilded halls. Maybe it was just the wine and frilly cakes affecting him, but unless Eres was very much mistaken, he was purposefully trying to drive her wild, knowing full well that she could do nothing about it while they were in public. He had been so adamant about the need for secrecy, and yet here he was, whispering her things that he surely must know sent her heart rate skittering away. Well, two could play at that game. 

“Does this mean you’d have an interest in dancing with me again?” she asked, taking a step closer and peering up at him from under her coated lashes. 

“Very much so. Unfortunately, standing up with an elven apostate would not help you in the eyes of the court.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Eres mused, “It would certainly up the level of intrigue in that blend you so adore.”

She let her chest lightly brush his arm, even as she kept her hands clasped behind her back. Solas’ eyes darkened and the corner of his mouth turned up.

“There are other aspects of that blend that hold more interest to me than intrigue.”

Her heart thudded distractingly against the tight bindings of her corset.

“Really? How shocking.” 

She turned to walk away, putting a little more sashay into her stride than she normally would, letting the crystals beaded on her dress catch the torch light. She could feel his eyes on her. 

“There are a few books I’ve been meaning to see if the Empress has in her library. Perhaps you could have a look for me,” she said over her shoulder as she headed down towards where the trail of blood still splashed across the floor, unnoticed. She wanted to look back at him, but knew the effect would be ruined if she did. This at least was a game she had experience in, and one that she had far more interest in playing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It always bummed me out how little interaction Leliana had with Morrigan... It also bummed me out that Leliana would straight up trash-talk her to the inquisitor. Morrigan is muh girl.


	29. The Game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nsfw? nsfw.
> 
> Also, finally got around to [doodling Eres' tattoo](http://maizzycakes.tumblr.com/post/119813202837/you-maizzy-are-you-ever-gonna-draw-a-non-sketchy) if anyone would like to see that. NSFW due to Lavellan butt.

This, this he had missed. The air, the feel of over-indulged importance steeped in the actual reality of people and their primal desires. Everyone here wanted something; there would be no point in attending such an event otherwise. He remembered playing that game, hiding behind pleasantries while letting things unspoken change the minds of those around him. It was a heady sort of rush, twisting events to unfold in patterns suited to ones own agenda and successfully outmaneuvering the plans of others. Hopefully he would be experiencing that success again tonight, if only secondhand.

He watched Eres flit around the hall and watched the eyes on her from all around. There were many eyes. Some looked at her as a curio, others like she was indeed a rabbit as the court here seemed so fond of calling her people - they the hunters eminently able and ready to stalk their prey. He almost wished to let the hunt happen. To see that exact moment when they realized their error in thinking her to be their “prey”. 

Instead, he sauntered over to the man that had been following Eres room to room for the better part of a half hour. 

“Hello.”

The man tore his eyes away from where Eres prowled at the far end of the courtyard, looked at Solas and looked away once more. 

“My friend, there are better places for your eyes to linger tonight.”

“I am not your friend, rabbit. Now, leave.”

Solas chuckled, knowing it would provoke the nobleman. “A figure of speech. What is your business with the Inquisitor?”

The Orlesian turned fully towards him and then said something that gave Solas pause. 

“Remember that, for the moment, we are not your enemy.”

“I beg your pardon?” 

“ Our intention was to watch, and we have seen enough,” the man said, a smile peeking out from below his gilt mask. The Orlesian accent was gone. From the little Solas could see of the smile, it was surprisingly sincere. 

“Who are you?”

“Unimportant at the present. Corypheus threatens us all, and the Inquisition is Thedas’s only hope for stopping him. Good luck.”

“Wait!” 

The man started to slip away into the crowd. Solas tried to grab at his arm, but the mysterious man managed to put a bulky Orlesian fop in between them, blocking Solas’ reach. 

“Do not be so eager to ride the waves, my friend. Those across the sea will come soon enough,” the not-Orlesian said over his shoulder as he vanished into the throng of people pressing to get out of the courtyard.

Solas stood frozen as lords and ladies brushed past him, sniffing in dismay at the elf blocking the way. That… qualified as one of the strangest conversations he had ever been involved in. Those Across the Sea? He had never heard of them. It bore looking into, though perhaps tonight was not the night. Another player on the field that had managed to escape the Inquisition’s notice for nearly a year boded ill. Though, he supposed it was nearly irrelevant. “Those Across the Sea” may have plans, but Solas was, quite literally, willing to bet the fate of the world that those plans did not include what he had in store once his orb was reclaimed. 

It could wait. He mentally filed it away for another time and glanced around the courtyard. To his surprise, Eres was half-way up a wall. Climbing. On a trellis. Still in the glittering dress. He stared around in disbelief. Every person in the courtyard was steadfastly ignoring it. Earlier when Eres had commented on the people ignoring the blood on the floor he had assured her that the nobility was far more distracted than she could ever imagine, but this was testing the bounds of reality. 

She stopped at the top, looking out over the people below her and spotted him in the crowd. The helmet he wore had the benefit of being highly visible from above, at least, even if it was earning him _looks_ from all of the Inquisition people that knew him. He had chosen to wear it to denote him as lower than the Commander, who was wearing the same Inquisition formal attire, but likely being announced as a serving man in conjunction with being an elf would have been enough to keep himself below the notice of the humans. 

Eres gave him a small wave, heeled shoes in hand, before walking out of his line of sight, heading towards the second floor of the palace. The library, he presumed. He should to tell her about his encounter with the strange man speaking of the sea, but likely it would be more prudent to wait. Eres needed to focus on the ball and making her way through it, rather than on vague conspiracies centered around one lone agent.

There were, however, some distractions that would not too adversely affect their evening in Halamshiral.

Solas opted out of the trellis route to the deserted second floor, instead heading back through the halls. He slipped up the stairs into the darkened library and paused for a moment to examine Eres, leaning palms down on a desk reading a sheath of paper. The shoes rested on the table in front of her. Her eyes darted over to him before going back to the paper, a smirk turning up the corner of her mouth. A low rumble of excitement spread through him. She thought she had won at some game or another by gaining his attendance. Interesting. 

He strode forward, catching her around the waist from behind and pressed her against the table. 

“Good hunting?”

“Better now,” she said, leaning back against him. The soft perfume someone had given her teased at the prickles of desire he had already been working through all evening. The sight of her starting to change the tides of the court with her mere presence was exhilarating. This is how she was meant to be, whether she understood the effect she had or not. It was certainly something to see. He was glad to be present on this mission, if only for that. 

“You compose yourself well in court, Vhenan.”

“I try.”

He slid a hand from her waist down her over her hip to her thigh, gathering the cloth into his fist, slowly exposing the skin underneath. 

“Perhaps we should see how well you keep that composure when there are distractions.”

His mouth found her neck and traced slow, almost delicate kisses up it, stopping to nip at her earlobe. 

Eres made a soft sound halfway between a “maybe” and a moan. He couldn’t help but smile at that. She was so responsive to him; he nuzzled into her neck and she tilted her head back, giving him room to kiss the skin just below the corner of her jaw; he drew the fabric of her skirt up above her thigh and she rocked her hips back against him. He wondered… if he was to move his free hand from her waist down between her legs… 

Eres sucked in a sharp breath, slowing the circling of her hips as his fingers brushed the edges of her silken underthings. 

“Expected you to perform better under pressure,” Solas murmured into her neck.

“Oh I don’t know,” she said in a slightly breathy voice, pressing back against him more insistently. “You seem to be doing about as well as I am.”

She was, of course, correct. The gauntlet had already been thrown, however. He may have come up to the library to continue their little nonverbal discussion, but that did not mean he was ready to admit defeat. Not quite yet.

“Shall we make it a game, then? It would seem appropriate, given the surroundings.” 

She tried to turn so that she could kiss him, but he held her in place, back flush to him.

“What kind of game?”

His fingers moved up to just before the spot he knew she desperately wanted him to touch and massaged into the flexed muscles of her leg. 

“An enjoyable one.”

Her hands on the table curled into fists. 

“Oh?”

His breath was coming faster and he bit lightly at the skin of her shoulder, exposed by the gaping neck of her dress. 

“Yes,” he whispered, “Let us see which of us proves more _composed,_ surrounded as we are by the high and mighty of Orlais _.”_

He brushed a thumb over the lingerie he had yet to see and her back arched. Eres did not make a sound, though. Apparently the challenge was accepted. 

“No response, Vhenan?” He asked, fighting the urge to laugh. She really was so damnably stubborn.

“Yes,” she hissed. 

Before he could continue his physical taunt, Eres stilled completely and he lessened his grip, hesitating at her sudden non-pliancy. Lightning quick, she twisted, pushing herself up on the desk. She crooked a leg around him and pulled him closer, smiling all too knowingly up from under her dark lashes. He had fallen for her trap, but somehow did not feel the least bit disappointed.

She grabbed the front of his dress coat and pull him down into a kiss, running her bare foot up and down the back of his leg. Lips parted under his and hot breath filled his mind with heady, undiluted desire. 

Eres bit lightly at his lower lip, teeth scraping over the sensitive skin and her tongue followed a moment later. She was far too good at this, for one with comparatively so little experience to others he had kissed. Perhaps it was merely the fact that it was her that caused him to fall so far into such a haze of desire. Her claim over him was astounding and only growing more with each moment spent in her company. 

Solas laced a hand into her hair, tangling his fingers up in the silky tresses and tugged her head back so his mouth could find her neck again, tasting the salty sweetness of skin. It earned him a soft hush of breath from her as her hands gripped at the fabric covering his back.

_CLANG._

A bell echoed throughout the palace and Eres jumped, pulling back from him and narrowly avoiding hitting his nose with her chin. The bell to return to the ballroom. With a sigh, Solas leaned down, resting his forehead on hers, trying take a moment to calm his rapidly beating pulse. 

“Da-amn,” she exhaled, drawing the word out into multiple syllables. 

He dipped down and kissed her lightly before freeing his hand from her hair. 

“Indeed. I’m afraid this will have to be continued at a different time. Perhaps after the ball.”

She scowled up at him, face flushed and hair disarrayed. He tucked one of the wisps that had escaped behind her ear, taking a moment to trace his fingers along her jaw. Eres leaned into the hand, letting her eyes close for a moment, before sighing and saying, “It had better be.”

“Ar lath ma, Eres. Hunt well.”

She looked up at him, eyes shining. She opened her mouth, smiled, closed it, frowned, then smiled again before standing up. Peculiar. He didn't know what to make of it. The silence stretched for a heartbeat too long before Eres said, “Well, I’d better get back in. Will you walk with me?”

“And let everyone jockeying for entrance into the hall see you walk out of a darkened library with a serving man?” He asked, joking despite the fact that his mind had drawn up short at her long pause. 

He could sense her rolling her eyes as she twisted around to grab her shoes, though she did not argue the point.

"Keep your eyes open for me. I’ll try to stop by and talk with you soon.”

Eres reached up to kiss him softly before heading out towards the vestibule.

He leaned back against the desk, eyes tracing her steps as a second bell rang out through the palace. Sparkles of light thrown by the beading of her dress danced in her wake from the few lights subtly illuminating the room. She looked like a fade walker, complete with a processional of small wisps dancing around at her beck and call. She pushed open the door at the end of the hall and was, for a moment, silhouetted against the rosy glow of the candlelit entrance hall.

With a crackle of power the anchor roared to life, green light flashing in the dark library. Eres stumbled back with a small cry, slamming the door closed. Solas sat up, instantly wary. She half-ran to him, grabbing his hand with her unanchored one and tugged him in the opposite direction of the door. 

“We need to move. Now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> [Those Across The Sea](http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Executors)


	30. Third Bell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of the bookmarks and comments!! You all are the bee's knees.
> 
> From Project Elvhen by Fenxshiral:
> 
> "ahn ane dirthal?"  
> What are you saying?
> 
> "Teleolasan"  
> I have no idea

Eres tried to pull Solas away from the nightmare waiting on the other side of the door. Before either could get more than a few steps it flew open and a figure stood silhouetted by the warm light of the vestibule. 

“Running from me? Really?” 

Every muscle in Eres’s body tensed. She dropped Solas’ hand and froze dead still. 

“After we haven’t seen each other in years? Rude, Reese,” continued that voice that had haunted her dreams for too many nights. 

She shivered, back still turned from the doorway as she heard the nearly inaudible footsteps draw closer. This could not be happening. This could not be happening. This could not be happening. 

Solas moved forward, putting himself in front of Eres.

“Still nothing? C’mon, Reese. I had heard that this ‘Herald of Andraste’ was an elf, but shit was my face red when I realized that I had been fucking a future saint all those years.”

Eres’ heart thudded like a drum in the silent hall. Each beat felt like someone banging a mallet against her ribs. Taegin. Here. In this palace. Within ten feet of her. She couldn’t process it, couldn’t handle it. Every fiber of being was screaming at her to run. Every fiber except, apparently, the ones in her feet. 

“Who are you?” Solas asked. 

Taegin leaned around him to shoot Eres a raised brow. 

“Who’s this supposed to be? Weird hat. And why is your hand green?”

It was too much. Too chaotically bizarre. 

She started laughing. The fantastical, horrible strangeness of the situation was too much. Here she was, done up like some poncy Orlesian noblewoman, somehow acting as a savior of the world and the one person, the only person that could accurately understand just how preposterous the entire situation was had somehow shown up at the height of Eres’ over-lauded pretentiousness. Taegin would know. Taegin would understand just how badly the world was mistaken about Eres and her importance and likely find it hilarious. Nothing like an ex-love showing up to bring some grim reality to a fairy tale situation. To top it off, she was being confronted by her _murdering_ ex-love in the presence of the possible new love-of-her-life. That really was the cherry on the cake. Or the icing, as the case... cake... may be. Gods. She was thinking about cake now. She shouldn't be thinking about cake probably. No, definitely not the best time,… but then, why not now? It was not as though she was even remotely capable of handling the situation; might as well squeeze in a few happy thoughts before she spontaneously combusted, right?

"Eres," Solas said quietly, placing a hand on her arm.

"Ree-eeeese," Taegin sing-songed, trying to step around Solas. 

Cake. Cake was good. Pie was better. She could probably get a cherry on top of a pie. Never mind icing. Hell, just a straight up cherry pie. Come to think of it, there must be pie somewhere around this place. Though it would probably be hard to eat it, what with the bile steadily rising up her throat and the panic constricting her airway. 

High pitched, tinny laughter pierced through the sound of blood rushing in her ears. Creators, was that her? Was she the one laughing like a lunatic in the quiet hall? Eres tried to rein herself in. Truly tried, and managed to downgrade the psychotic laughter to a single gasping sob before finally lapsing into silence.

“Sorry, _”_ Eres managed to breathe, winded from her hopefully temporary bout of insanity. Her apology was mostly directed at Solas, who was looking at her with deep concern, a small frown line deepening between his brows.

"The hell was that, Reese?"

Maybe it wasn’t so temporary. Eres had to physically wrangle down another hysterical giggle from burbling up. The mark still thrummed with power, casting a strange green light over everything around her. 

She used to love that nickname. The way it flitted off of Taegin's tongue had never failed to conjure up mental images of... well, not happier times, but decidedly more pleasant times. Now, however...

"That never made sense."

Taegin frowned at her from around Solas. "What?"

"'Reese' doesn't technically work. It should've been closer to 'Ress'. Though I suppose it doesn't have quite the same ring to it."

“ _Ahn ane dirthal?”_

_“Teleolasan,”_ she said back to Solas. To Taegin she continued, ”The nickname. It's not even how my name is pronounced.“

Taegin's face split into a sudden cheshire grin. Solas relaxed his tense stance and let go of Eres' arm. She caught his hand before he moved out of reach. Fuck propriety; she needed some gods damned support at the moment.

Taegin raised a brow.

“Would you prefer I switch to Herald? Inquisitor?” She leered, glancing up at Solas and said, “murderer?”

Whatever reaction she had been expecting, Solas did not give it to her. 

“Taegin, I presume?” He asked, nonchalant as you please. Not for the first time, Eres was struck by his ability to drain all emotion from his voice. It was significantly more impressive when she was not on the receiving end of it.

Taegin’s leer melted down into a frown as a second bell rang out through the palace.

“Your Inquisition people know? And they still think you’re the second Andraste?” She asked Eres. 

“I think I’m missing the part where that’s any of your concern,” Eres snapped, temper rising even through her panic.

“Ahhh, so you haven’t told them all. Interesting.”

There was nothing Eres could say that wouldn’t push the situation further into the “utter shit” category. 

“Of course she has,” Solas said smoothly, catching Eres off guard once again. “The Inquisitor deemed it prudent to enlighten the Inquisition at large about her background before committing her services.” He stepped back so that he stood by her side, granting Eres her first full view of Taegin in six years. She hadn’t changed much. The same dark, silky skin, the same black tattoos ringing her eyes and the same look of displeased incredulity that Eres had seen on her the week before her last contract. That look was not a good look. It had preceded Taegin trying to kill her the last time. 

Eres found herself fervently wishing that the words he had spoken were true. She had meant to, she really had after the debacle with her clan, but somehow it had never felt like quite the right time. Likely there would never be a time that felt “right”. When was it best to shatter the foundation of what her friends thought of her? Though, she supposed, Sera, Cole and especially Solas had taken it well enough. Dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. Leliana at the very least needed to know. 

Taegin glanced at where Eres clung to Solas’ hand before flicking her eyes back up to him and regarding him with a frosty stare. 

A third bell echoed. Fuck. 

“I have to go,” Eres breathed. Josephine had said that arriving after the third bell was social suicide and here she was, hand still glowing and no where near the ballroom. 

“Inquisitor, allow me to escort you,” Solas offered, dropping her hand and holding out his arm. She took it, probably clutching a little tighter than was strictly necessary, judging by the way Solas’ muscles tensed under her fingertips.

“Well, good talk. Bye,” Eres said quickly. 

“Was it?” Taegin asked, grinning at her. There was an awful lot of smiling coming from her. Too much. The bottom dropped out of Eres’ stomach at that realization. If she could have fade-stepped her way out of that dark library she would’ve been gone before Taegin could even draw her next breath.

They brushed past Taegin, walking quickly out into the deserted vestibule, the mark still flaring wildly.

“You will need to control it before you reenter the ballroom,” Solas admonished as they walked.

“I can’t! I don’t know how to make it stop! Do you think I wanted to have it going crazy with her around?” Her voice was too high-pitched. She had practically just squeaked at Solas. 

“Focus,” he said as they drew to a stop outside of the big double doors. “Take deep, steady breaths and concentrate on the flow of energy being pulled down to the anchor. Slow it.”

Eres let the slow cadence of his words wash over her frazzled psyche and did as he said, picturing the green light traveling through her arm. The mark quieted.

“I… thanks.”

“Think nothing of it.”

“I mean for everything in there. Taegin… well, to say that I never expected to see her again would be an understatement.”

“I gathered,” he said dryly. His expression softened and he squeezed her arm that was still wrapped around his own. “Shall I keep watch on her? If she is as dangerous as you’ve said in the past, she might bear looking at. Perhaps she was the one contracted to commit the murder we are trying to avert tonight.”

Guilt wracked through Eres. She hadn’t let him know that she was intending to let Celene die tonight. When had omitting truths become so close to actually lying? First her history as an assassin, now this. She would have to work on being more upfront with people, no matter how unpleasant that idea seemed to be. This was getting out of hand. It was not as though she could tell him now, though, about her plans for Celene. They were surrounded by the ears and eyes of people just waiting to latch onto any of the Inquisition underhanded dealings. 

“No. Just… just ignore her. I don’t want to get tangled up in whatever it is. I doubt Taegin is high-profile enough to be contracted for something like that, anyway.”

“Still, the question of her presence remains.”

“Solas… please. Just leave it. If we stay out of her business, hopefully she’ll stay out of ours.”

He looked down at her, speculating and… half pitying? Oh hells. She didn’t want his pity. 

Slowly, he said, “You have other plans tonight.”

It was a statement, not a question. Guilt slammed through her again.

“I… thought you would try to stop me.”

His lips pressed into a firm line.

“So you thought that it would be better to let the pieces fall where they may and explain afterwards,” he finished with a sigh. 

“Solas, I didn’t mean to-“

“No,” he cut her off. “Now is not the time. Your presence is required in the ballroom.”

She nodded, throat closing up with anxiety, unable to look him in the eye. She closed her eyes and counted to ten, trying to calm herself before opening the doors to the ballroom.

A hand touched her back and she cracked an eye open. 

“I would not have stopped you,” Solas said quietly.

She bumped her shoulder up against him, unsure of how to properly apologize. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and hoped it was enough.

 “I have thought long on your words from when we spoke of change in Wycome. Do not feel that you cannot trust me with matters related to such things.”

He chose his words carefully, such that it would be impossible for an eavesdropper to understand his meaning. A surge of relief washed over Eres. He did not hate her for letting a murder take place this evening, even if it had the potential of rocking the foundation of Orlais to its core. That meant the world to her. Which was pretty fucked up, come to think of it. Rarely had she felt so strongly about killing someone, but the Empress more than deserved what was coming to her for the mass murder of the elves in Halamshiral and for the steady oppression that had been part of Orlesian policy for the past handful of centuries. That probably didn’t say anything good about Eres, but then, it was a little too late to go digging through her motivations at this point. Her course was set. Fallout be damned, there would be some justice dealt tonight to those that thought themselves untouchable by it. 

“Duly noted,” she mumbled, giving him a small smile. She squared her shoulders and walked into the ball room. 

The dancing had already started up, thankfully, so her tardy entrance went unnoticed for the most part. The next hour passed in a blur. Eres whirled around the dance floor with the Grand Duchess of Lydes, distracted. Chatted with Josephine’s sister, distracted. Talked to Morrigan once again, but still remained distracted. Taegin’s presence was a fortress drawn up around her mind. Thoughts not relating to Taegin tried their best to scale the high walls, but very few managed to get more than halfway through to her. Why was she here? Should she really want to know the answer to that question?

Morrigan handing off the key to the locked off parts of the castle did, however, manage to break through Eres’ apprehension daze. She tried to rally herself as she gathered up her companions and found a private area where she could slip out of her glitzy ball gown. She felt, if not exactly better, at least more comfortable in her normal clothes. She could do without the pressure of the perfect dress to remind her of how very, very much she was out of place in Halamshiral. And, honestly, no tears would be shed if she never saw that fucking corset again.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This](http://41.media.tumblr.com/1cee541cae4dbc26e60121375c281a70/tumblr_npghk13JaJ1ridrdeo1_1280.png) was the inspiration for Eres' backstory from the very start (those random, hooded dwarves lurking around Halamshiral). Why are they there?? Always twinged my curiosity.
> 
> Have you ever tried to write someone having a panic attack? Highly recommend it. 10/10 would giggle-snort while writing one again.
> 
> Yooooo... sorry about the slow update. My reasons are twofold:  
> 1) So far I've worked 70 hours this week and I'm working tomorrow as well ( ಠ◡ಠ ) I'm so tired lol *sobs*  
> and 2) fellow writers... do you ever have those moments where you look at the words you type and think "damn, I am not good at this"? That's about where I was all week as I tried to surreptitiously scribble things into my notebook on lunch and dinner breaks. Freaked myself out. I'm hopefully over it for now, though. 
> 
> Also... I posted on tumblr about writing a noir AU and I can officially say that it is happening... or at least that I have a chapter written and literally everything about the characterizations/worldbuilding planned out. Not posting it yet because I don't want to be actively torn between writing WS and that, but imma be slowly building up some chapters when I'm stuck writing things here and eventually smacking the solavellan fandom over the head with it once I have a good amount written.  
> [Here's](http://maizzycakes.tumblr.com/post/120333584202/im-home-slightly-intoxicated-and-listening-to) the very bare-bones version of where my head's at for that if you're interested.


	31. Trust

It wasn’t quite anger, but something in that same vein of heart-thudding discomfort was playing around the edges of his mind.

Eres shot him a questioning look as a blizzard formed over their darkened, hallway battlefield, battering not only the enemies, but her and their other companions as well. 

“Was that really necessary, Apostate?” Vivienne snapped, drawing up barriers to protect against the wind, ice and still flying arrows. 

The ice storm was not a loss of control. Not at all. The harlequins flipping around with skill nearly on Eres’ level would have a much harder time navigating around the ice slicked floor. The fact that creating a giant storm cloud was immensely satisfying was besides the point. Not that he felt the need to explain himself to the First Enchanter. 

A harlequin slipped on the glazed over marble and flew into one of Solas’ ice mines, instantly freezing solid. Solas sent a stone fist flying at the frozen rogue, shattering him into thousands of glittering shards. 

He raised a brow at Madame de Fer. 

She “Tched” and went back to cleaving at enemies with the spirit sword she had the arrogance to think that her people had invented. That, however, was a discussion for a less enemy-filled time.

Solas spared a moment to track Eres in the melee and refresh her barrier. 

Again he was struck with that same illogical almost-anger when he spotted her. She was keeping secrets from him. And yet, he was in no position to justify the hurt he felt over her reticence. Did she not trust him? If she did not, her instincts were likely on point. Who was he to fault cleverness on her part, even if it was displayed unconsciously?

Solas whirled and hurled an energy bolt at a panicking enemy, causing a burst of fire to wash out to those nearby. 

He was the very core of the problem for all that he was not telling her and all that he planned. What gave him the right to want so much of Eres while he gave only the smallest amount of himself in return? It came back to the conversation at her clan when she had posed him the question of if love could be real if it was not equally shared. Except…

He flung his staff out, catching a backflipping harlequin across the back with dual hits of first an icy chill and then a sharp crack with the wood itself.

Except he had no guarantee that she did love him. He was fairly certain she did. Would, if pressed, even lay down money on that claim, but the words had never actually been spoken by her. For that, he had been grateful. It helped to keep the guilt he felt every time he let reality touch him at a bearable level. And yet-

“Solas, move!”

Eres brushed past him in a blur, flinging herself in a giant leap at an enemy just behind him.

He fade stepped away in instinctive reaction to her warning, turning to see Eres locking daggers with a harlequin that had managed to sneak behind him. 

And yet now that he was certain of his own feelings, however convoluted they might be with the reality of their situation, he wondered at her silence on the point. It was not something he could ask her, nor was it something he would want to hear because he had dragged it out of her, but… he wanted her to trust him, and trust came with love. Or perhaps one earned the other. So if he had confirmations of neither, where did that leave him? Probably on less morally questionable ground. 

Solas watched as she flew through an intricate, deadly dance with the harlequin and planted an ice mine a meter back from where they fought. Eres spotted it and pressed the offensive, managing to back the harlequin into the circle on the marble floor, shattering him as soon as the mine activated. She flashed a smile at him, making his heart do a small sort of stutter-step as she whirled off into the fight again. 

At least her head seemed to be more clear now that she was back in her element. That was something. 

He wished his mind would be as obliging.

He pictured her reaction earlier at seeing that Taegin woman - one who had betrayed her. How many magnitudes worse would it be for her to find out that she was involved with one who had betrayed her entire race? He mentally blanched at the thought of seeing that look of horror directed at him. That was something he never wanted to come to pass, and yet it would. It was unavoidable. It came down to the type of betrayal he chose. One of silence, or one of the truth. Both ending in destruction.

A dagger whooshed past his ear and struck the last standing enemy in the middle of his forehead, killing him instantly. It had not come from Eres, though.

Trust for trust. He needed to be honest with her if he craved her own honesty this much in return. She was more important to him than he ever could have expected, and she deserved better than to have this chapter of her life shot through with festering half-truths.

“Fancy meeting you here.” 

Solas’ eyes snapped up to see a small masked woman picking her way through the carnage over to where Eres stood, panting slightly after her exertions in the fight.  

“Inquisitor Lavellan,” the woman said, dipping her head in a slight bow, a wry smile playing on her lips. “Slumming in the servant’s quarters with the rest of your people for once? We haven’t been properly introduced, have we? I’m Ambassador-”

_“Briala.”_

_Solas scoffed, “And you think this woman is worth your time?”_

_“Why not? She’s well placed to stir up a few hornets’ nests.” Felassan said. He stopped to snatch at a bunch of grapes left on a shimmering table along the twisting path they were following._

_Solas swatted his hand away._

_“Really?” He asked, annoyed._

_“Whaaat? Like you wouldn’t stop any demon from trying to possess me.”_

_“If you are going to pointlessly taunt the spirits in their own realm, perhaps our time together is drawing to a close.”_

_Felassan grinned at him, but it was a hollow grin - devoid of his usual warmth. Solas supposed his own good humor had begun to dwindle in recent centuries as well. Being trapped in the fade behind his own barrier was no longer the half-amusing punchline to his story, now that said story had turned out to be a tragedy._

_“I… am sorry, old friend. That came across harsher than I had intended,” Solas said with a sigh._

_Felassan cleared his throat and continued on as though nothing had happened, “The girl’s shem anyway. It’s not as though she’ll be around long enough for much of my time to be wasted if this all comes to nothing. It’s as I’ve told you, though. The elves in the cities are where to look for the future. Unrest is nearly to the boiling point, while the Dalish are content to hide themselves away and pretend none of this is their problem.” He paused, slanting a look at Solas. “I’ve already started telling Briala the stories about you. She seemed to get quite a kick out of my current namesake.”_

_“Would that be the real version or the one you made up to suit your ridiculous lust for fantasy?”_

_“Legends have weight, falon. If I started walking up to people and saying ‘hey, by the way, Fen’Harel? He ended slavery in Elvhenan and stopped a war. That whole locking up the other gods business? Completely justified.’ I would be chased out of every Dalish camp I came across. More than half of the city elves would have no idea what I was even talking about. Spin them a story, though, and that’s how to win over their imaginations. Win the imagination, win the heart.”_

_“Stories are easily disproved,” said Solas, frowning. He wondered how much false information Felassan had leaked out into the world over the years. Surely he could not have resisted moving past the realms of metaphor and suggestion. The man was loquacious to a fault._

_Felassan gave him a sly smile._

_“Which is why I prefer to dabble in legend. Ideas behind stories are not so easily explained away.”_

“Nice shot,” Eres remarked, choosing to ignore Briala’s comment about her elevated station.

Solas drew back as much as possible in the hallway, partly because he did not want to be involved in the conversation, but mostly because finally seeing this Briala in the flesh was like a knife wound to his chest. Already he understood why Felassan had regrettably taken an interest in the young elf. Briala’s tongue could’ve cut glass. He wondered how much that had come from his old friend’s influence on her and how much was purely disillusionment from years spent undermining the Orlesian political structure. Judging from all he had heard of her since walking the world again, she had taken Felassan’s tales of underhanded means to ends to heart, even if her plans for rebellion had yet to pan out thus far. 

The apologies he could never say to his friend and the life he could never return nearly sent Solas to the floor. He had to get a hold of himself; to lock away that part of him in order to deal with the present. It was all he could do to keep going, and so he did. 

Briala was a political figure, not a person. That was the way it had to be. 

“I’ve heard tales of your mien’harel in Wycome, Inquisitor.”

“Yeah, that was a good time. Though I’d say it was a little more than a ‘mien’harel’, considering we successfully conquered the city,” Eres said, leaning against an over turned table and looking bored.

Watching them talk was like watching two predators circle each other, unsure whether the other meant to attack, but ready for anything. Briala had the political experience, but Eres had the sheer might of the Inquisition at her finger tips. It was an electrifying power struggle disguised as a polite conversation, but not a single person present in the hall was fooled. 

“Impressive. Did you truly leave only the elves alive in the city?”

“We didn’t kill people that weren’t fighting back, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Not at all, I merely wished to have had the chance to see it for myself before your Inquisition forces garrisoned there and… diluted things. Quite a sight, I would imagine. I think we may be able to help each other. There are few enough Dalish I can stomach, but after Wycome you could be counted among their number,” said Briala, idly flicking a stray bit of dust from her simple green dress. 

“I'm flattered," Eres said, tone as dry as desert. "You should consider reaching out to the Duchess of Wycome - maybe you’ll be able to stomach her as well.”

“Already done. And you are behind the times, Inquisitor. Haven’t you heard? A republic of sorts is now running the city. Your ‘Duchess’ established a formal council to include the non-Dalish elves in the future of  _their_  city. It’s why I reached out to her in the first place.”

Eres was silent for a moment before letting out a laugh, shaking her head. Her tightly coiled air of wariness slipped away and she grinned up at Briala.

“I’m sorry, I’ve used up all of my double talk for tonight. Let's just chat plainly for a moment here: I want to help you. I can help you. Can you run Orlais if I give you the tools?”

Cassandra and Vivienne both sucked in sharp breaths and started to protest. Solas wanted to run over and clap a hand over Eres’ mouth. The game was obviously wearing on her this evening, but that was no excuse to drop it entirely. He pinched the bridge of his nose, before quickly scanning the hall for any tell tale whispers of movement by one of the many spies operating around the palace this evening. Apparently her mind was not as clear of her earlier anxiety as he had supposed. His eyes settled on Eres again and noted the way her hand shook as she smoothed her hair out of her face.

Briala’s face split into a wide smile.

“Of course. 

“Inquisitor, this is not-!” Vivienne started to say.

Eres turned on her. 

“Viv, I appreciate your council on the matter, but this is not a decision that you,” Eres inclined her head to where Cassandra stood looking aghast, “or you will be able to change. You’ve seen what the other two nugfuckers are trying to pull off tonight. Do you really want to tell me that people ordering the murder of innocent servants deserve to run a country?”

Cassandra frowned, but Vivienne looked as though Eres had slapped her with her lack of regard for the Game and her use of “Viv”. Or potentially that exquisite use of "nugfuckers". Eres ignored them both and Solas felt a small swell of something that was very nearly pride rise up in his chest. She may not be a political savant, nor even above moral reproof, but his vhenan was a force of nature when it came to accomplishing. 

Eres stared them down a few moments longer before saying, “Right, every one good? Great. We’ll take later, Ambassador.”

Briala nodded and waved them on their way with a dismissive hand. Solas saw Eres roll her eyes as she turned from the imperious elf. Wryly, he wondered if perhaps Briala was more ready to lead a nation than he had expected. She already had quite a grasp over the minor displays of power required to sell the illusion of her own importance. 

Eres lead them further into the castle, dispatching enemies with a new spring in her step. Especially as each wrong turn by the misguided Grand Duke and the intricate plotting of the current Empress came to light in the form of multiple letters and even a few eye witnesses. Florianne had promised Eres further evidence damning her own brother, but it hardly seemed necessary with the sheer amount of “dirt” as Eres called it, turned up. 

It was a fortunate thing they did follow up on the lead, however, as it lead them straight into a trap, and revealed the true ally of Corypheus hiding amongst the people of the court - Grand Duchess Florianne herself. It was not a very subtle ploy, but then, he supposed, Corypheus likely wasn’t picking his servants for their subtlety.

After dealing with Florianne’s trap, they raced through the castle, back down to the ballroom. Upon entering the vestibule, Solas spotted something on the shadowy stairs leading up to the library. 

Eres hurried ahead, Vivienne and Cassandra close on her heels. She no doubt wanted to give the order that would allow the murder of the empress, and the two humans no doubt wanted to try to talk her out of it once again. 

He let the three woman pass and walked over to the thing on the stairs. It was the mask Eres had been wearing earlier in the evening, placed neatly in the dead center of the steps. Odd.

—

Eres leaned forward on the balcony rail, looking out over the gardens that were, even now, full of laughing and celebrating Orlesian nobles. Strange that they found such... entertainment in bloodshed. She may have taken personal satisfaction in watching one more power-corrupt noble take a dagger in the gut, but not amusement. That was a little too macabre for her tastes. For now, the nobility seemed to be taking the rule of Gaspard in stride, not knowing that it was actually an elven woman now holding the reins of their country. _That_  she could find amusement in. 

She tried to conjure up a laugh at the idea, but she was too tired to manage it. It had been a hard fight against Florienne. It had only been her, Vivienne and Cassandra against a horde of rabid Corypheus worshippers, which had lead to her running like a maniac and tossing out flasks of bees with abandon. Solas must’ve gotten locked outside the large wrought-iron gate when the fight had started. 

Eres had half hoped that he would come and find her out on this balcony. She could use a... debriefing after all the stresses of the night. Whether it was to be a verbal or physical experience was now a moot point without Solas there. She knew that she had frustrated him earlier, but they had somewhat resolved that awkward talk, right? Surely it was laid to rest enough for him to at least _talk_ to her after a night like this... right?

Eres straightened and made her way back into the hall. She spotted Cullen trying to be as unobtrusive as possible in a dark corner.

"Inquisitor," Cullen said, inclining his head to her. It was the first time this evening that she had seen him free of his gaggle of admirers. 

"Hey. Escaped your fans did you?" She asked, mustering a small smile. She was so tired. So ready to be anywhere but Halamshiral. 

"For now," Cullen muttered darkly. "Was there something you needed?"

"Aside from sleep? Yeah. Have you seen Solas?"

“Not since you departed for the servant's quarters."

“Ahh. Shit. Ok. If you see him, will you let him know I'm going to be out on the balcony and that I'd like to talk to him?”

She didn't much like the idea of commanding Solas to come to her, but another romp through the palace to find him was far, far beyond her current energy levels. 

"Of course."

"Thanks, Cullen."

She smiled at him again and started to walk back to where she had been gathering her thoughts before. Only... only now there was something on the railing, glinting in the moonlight. She could see it through the open double doors. Something in the back of Eres' mind started send up warning signals, but her conscious thoughts could not wrap around what her subconscious could possibly be shouting about. Slowly she walked towards the balcony. 

It was Solas' awful hat. She picked it up, weighing the shiny metal in her hands and found a note underneath. 

_Reese,_

_I'm sure you know the drill by now. Details to follow when I've got the time. You know how it is, work work work._

_Great seeing you again,_

_xxx_

_-T._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, HELLO, Insecure Solas. Fancy meeting you here.  
> I just... really like the idea of Solas not quite knowing where he stands with someone. He used to be a ruler/god/whatever, so he never really had to worry about what people thought of him very much. But now he does. A lot. And it's making him a little crazy just like it would any other person that had said "I love you" without getting it said back. I always thought it was odd that Lavellan doesn't say it back unless you pick the sad option in the Heartbreak Grove of Despair, but I kinda like this for Eres. It fits with her having the people most important to her up and die or try to have her killed.
> 
> Transition chapters will be the end of me. Gah! I'm so bad at speeding things along.


	32. Nightmares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully you all vaguely remember the start of chapter 14 (Fever Dream). 
> 
> I almost named this one "Vhenan pls"
> 
> Chapter dedicated to [Salesman](http://archiveofourown.org/users/salesman/pseuds/salesman), because she gifted me a delightful dream-filled one shot that seriously could not have been timed better with me writing this chapter. If you want to read something supremely adorable, check out that [story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4202751)

She ran, heart thumping wildly in her chest, not enough breath left in her lungs to keep up the pace much longer. The smell of ozone surrounded her; a sharp note against the backdrop scent of grass and night. It was dense air, stirring around her in impossible patterns, crackling with energy - as though a big storm was about to sweep through and wipe her away. On she flew through the endless waving fields of grass with only the thousands of stars above to illuminate the night. 

“Eres!”

She froze mid-stride, spinning around to see Solas chasing after her. She stayed still long enough to let him catch up before grabbing his hand and taking off again, fighting her way through the thigh-high grass.

“Eres, wait! Where are we?” He asked as they raced through the quiet field. 

“Not now. We have to move!”

“Tell me why.”

Why could he not see it? Why didn’t he know was was coming?

The grass bent down in a shockwave, bowing forward in front of them in huge arcing ripples, power nipping at their backs. Solas slowed, drawing her to a stop with him and ignored her insistent pulling at his arm. 

The edges of the sky turned green, cutting through the void and starlight. 

She tried again to get him to move, but he stayed still as stone, tunic rippling in the gusting wind. The green light reflected weirdly off his eyes as he stared up at the sky, so much so that they almost seemed to glow. A shiver shook its way down Eres’ spine.

“Solas, please. We have to run!” Panic was edging up around her and spilling into her words, though she was trying hard to keep it under control. 

Still, his feet did not move. Slowly he turned his gaze to her, frowning. 

“You have been waking before reaching this point.”

“What? I don’t-“

The green light burned bright, filling the sky all around. It was too late to run. Eres stopped mid-question and watched as the barrier between reality and dreams dissolved over the world, like paper going up in the wake of a great green flame. Not a rift, not a breach; a complete, rapid shriveling of what she had once fought so hard to keep intact. Solas’ eyes never left her. They were alone as the world changed with whispering, reaching power.

“You have dreamed this the past few nights. Does it usually happen this frequently?” he asked and Eres’ eyes snapped back to him. The awe he had been radiating was slipping away into something else. Worry? Speculation? Fear?

“What are you talking about?”

He ignored the question.

“Come. We must speak, preferably away from here.”

“Solas, you can’t just-“

On the horizon, a figure appeared, haloed by a corona of violently green light. Eres’ hand roared to life. 

“Look!” She gasped, reaching out and pointing, squeezing Solas’ hand to draw his attention to the figure. A sense of dread settled heavily on her as the figure drew closer.

“Yes, Vhenan, that is indeed an oddly colored ram. Perhaps it is our missing ’Ser Woolsley’.”

Eres blinked. 

Ram? No the… why was that ram orange? Its shining coat glistened in the cool sunlight of the Hinterlands as it grazed at a tuft of the thick grass.

And why was she holding Solas’ hand? 

Vhenan?

She dropped the offending appendage immediately and sucked in a lungful of the crisp Ferelden air, suddenly feeling dizzy. 

“Vhenan?” She choked out, staring at the bald apostate. They had only just met a few weeks ago. She backed away, eying the man who now looked to be fighting to hold in a laugh. She had found him strange and rather rude so far, but now she had the dawning realization that he might actually be insane. It would explain a lot. 

“Yes. Vhenan,” he said slowly. “Eres remember. You must focus on what you know. Draw from the anchor to bring your mind to the present.”

“What are you talking about? I barely even know you!” Her voice broke on the last word.

Some emotion that she couldn’t understand flickered across his face as he took a step towards her. She stumbled back again, faster, trying to keep the distance between them. He huffed out a breath of what was clearly frustration and pressed a palm to his forehead. 

“I am sorry for this. It is easier to make the jump into a memory rather than building a new environment, and we had to leave rather quickly before the natural progression of that other dream woke you.”

Clearly crazy. 

“Riiiiight… well, I’m just going to go… over there. Let you sort out whatever this is that you’re dealing with. Just… just stay here. Drink some water. Maybe that last batch of elfroot hit you funny.”

Solas rolled his eyes and moved towards her again, reaching out for her this time. Eres dodged away, hands going to her daggers. What the hell was he doing? 

“Vhenan, please. Trust me. We do not have time for this.”

“I’m not your ‘Vhenan’,” she snapped. 

“I am afraid you are,” Solas said softly as he came forward. He reached up, cupping her cheek in his hand, and trailed a thumb along the curve of her ear. Sunlight streamed in through the tall glass windows of her bed chambers at Skyhold and lit up the small smile on his face just before her lips met his. 

A cacophony of delirious sensation washed over her. Sudden dizziness combined with a steady rumble of emotion at his gentle kiss left her head spinning. Solas lightly bit at her bottom lip, teasing the tenderness of the moment until Eres could not even remember her own name, let alone why she’d had so much adrenaline swimming through her veins before his mouth had captured hers. 

He pulled away, resting his forehead against hers and sighed. 

“At the risk of sounding redundant, we truly do not have much time.”

He laid back on the fancy Orlesian bed she had recently added to her room at Skyhold. Eres pushed herself up next to him, nestling close as he wrapped his arm around her and held her tight. Lazily she trailed her fingers in small circles over his bare chest and contemplated the best excuse to get her out of work that afternoon. There was no _way_ she was leaving this perfect moment with Solas willingly. Not when they had barely ever had a break such as this. Up until now their times alone together had mostly been stolen moments in tents or a few whispered words of suggestion spoken in passing as each went about their duties. This, though, was fucking amazing.

“I could talk my way out of that meeting with my advisors in two minutes flat,” she pronounced, and draped her leg over his hips. 

Solas let out a short laugh. He leaned over and pressed a kiss into her hair as his hand traced along her naked side. 

“I’m sure you could, but that is not what I meant. You must listen closely to what I am about to tell you and remember,” he said, shifting into a much more business-like tone.

She snorted and nuzzled closer. Like she wasn’t already hanging on his every word. She _always_ hung on his every word. They were amazingly nice words, especially since their return from Wycome.

“Alright. What do you so desperately need to tell me right now?”

“First, you must relax. Do not let your mind pull away as I speak. If you can, perhaps try to enter a meditative state.”

She debated questioning him about what he was trying to get at, but decided the best way to find out was to do as he said. Solas did not sound as if he was joking and she was curious enough now to play along. She closed her eyes and let the tension fall away from her muscles, leaving her arm draped over his chest.

“Good,” he said. “Now… do you remember the ball at Halamshiral?”

Candle lit halls. A sea of faces hidden by masks; the feel of Solas’ arms around her in a darkened library. An empty balcony. Taegin. Taegin. Eres’ eyes flew open as the images came to life and flashed all around her. 

_Taegin._

A jolt of alarm happened somewhere around her navel and suddenly she was falling through black space. She let out a scream and flailed wildly at the thin air, finding nothing to catch herself on. Out of nowhere Solas’ hand shot out and grabbed hers, and he heaved her back up onto the bed beside him. 

Eres gulped as sweat broke out along her brow. She looked over the edge of the bed and instead of the stone floor there was only a gaping, bottomless hole. She threw her arms around Solas and clung onto him, horrified by vertigo-inducing emptiness completely surrounding the world underneath them. 

“Eres! Listen! You are about to wake up. Taegin captured me.”

The bed shook as the walls started to crumble down, great chunks of rock and glass falling straight into the void beneath them. 

“We are traveling-“

Clouds from the open sky above started to drift downwards, pulled into the abyss below as the wind picked up, covering Solas’ words with a roaring wall of noise.

“To the Emerald Graves!” He shouted again, trying to make himself heard over the rushing wind. The clouds engulfed Eres’ little bed as they flew down into the nothingness, leaving her and Solas both drenched from the water vapor as the sky itself was drained away.

“How do you know?” She yelled back, blinking the water out of her eyes as she squinted up at him through the chaos of crumbling building and sound.

“Overheard the guards! There are templars!”

The bed gave a jerk and suddenly she and Solas were falling too - flying downwards amidst the clouds and debris, still holding onto each other. 

“I’ll find you!” She yelled as she felt her grip start to slip on his wet skin. 

“I know!” He shouted back. 

They were in complete free fall. 

She grabbed his face between her hands as her hold around his back gave way and pressed her lips to his.

Then everything disappeared.

 

Eres cracked an eye open and was greeted with the brood mother of all headaches. Slowly she sat up on the hard, straw-packed bed and kneaded her forehead with her knuckles. Sleep had not come easily to her the past three nights, not since she had gone out to that balcony at the Winter Palace and found Taegin’s maddeningly vague note. 

Taegin had Solas. 

Eres drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, trying to hold in the sheer dread that had been her constant companion for the past few days. Josephine had tried to suggest going back to Skyhold to regroup and form a more solid plan, but Eres had flat-out refused. Taegin had taken Solas from Halamshiral and she was not nearly idiotic enough to hide away anywhere near the Inquisition’s stronghold. Vivienne had offered to let them stay at Duke Bastien’s estate in Val Royeaux, but again, Eres had refused, in case traveling to Val Royeaux was yet another step further away from where she needed to be. Nothing would get her to leave halamshiral short of an actual lead.

_Emerald Graves._

She raised her head from her knees and blinked rapidly. Where had that thought come from?

The wooden door of her inn room banged open and Eres jumped. 

“Inquisitor I- MAKER.”

Cullen spun around on the threshold and promptly slammed the door shut again.  

Eres unfolded herself from her curled up position and went to open it. 

“What? Do you have news?”

Cullen stood at the top of the narrow stairway, facing away. 

“I… yes.” He held a note up over his shoulder and Eres had to hop to snatch it out of his hand. 

She quickly scanned it, eyes settling on the words “ransom” and the number 500,000. Her blood boiled at the last line. It was exactly the same as the last note she had received:

 

_xxx-_

_T._

 

“There was no indication of where they might be hiding him,” Cullen said, still not facing her. 

“Of course there wasn’t, but I know where they are.” Eres snapped. 

Cullen whirled around.

“What?”

He immediately turned red as his eyes widened at the sight of her nudity and Eres’ already severely limited patience ran dry. 

“Alright, look. Lots of people sleep naked. You fucking humans need to learn to knock. There are more important things going on here than me pretending to give a fuck about your modest sensibilities.”

Cullen backed a few steps down the stairs, looking very much like she had just slapped him. Her temper was still roiling from stress and bad sleep, but she couldn’t let her commander leave like that. He didn’t deserve her fury. Taegin did. 

She exhaled slowly, trying to seal the anger away until it would be most useful.

“Cullen, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-“

“No, no, you are quite right. I should have had the decency to knock,” he said, walking back up to her and shaking his head contritely, still averting his eyes. “Inquisitor… if I might be so bold… is there… more to this than what you told us of your past entanglements with this Taegin? I understand your worry over your past coming to light, believe me, and your concern for our companion, but the amount of stress heaped on you seems… disproportionate.”

Eres turned and walked back into her room, grabbing her shirt and pants off the floor, and began to dress. Cullen stood awkwardly in the doorway, unsure if her silence was a dismissal or not. It wasn’t. After she was clothed she sat on the bed and started toying with the paper in her hands.

“Solas and I are…” She swallowed heavily. Surely there was no point in hiding it any longer. “We’re together. I don’t know how Taegin knows that, but I think she does. I told you, Leliana and Josephine of my past with Taegin as we left the palace. She won’t hesitate to kill him if we don’t give her what she wants… it’s… it’s what I would’ve done if I was in her situation.”

The silence stretched as her words sank in. Cullen had not reacted particularly well to the news of Eres being a wanted murderer, though he had taken it much better than she had expected him to. They all had, actually, Leliana even going so far as to say that her agents might be pleased by the news. Something about them knowing that their Inquisitor was one of them. Eres had been so numb to everything by the time she had realized that Solas was gone that she wouldn’t have cared even if any of them had started screaming at her. Still, it was better that they respected her despite everything. It was better that she had all of the resources of the Inquisition ready to help her get Solas back. It was better that they hadn’t arrested her or something, because she would’ve had to waste time going through the process of breaking out and finding Solas on her own. 

Because she was going to find Solas. 

Nothing in Thedas could stop her from that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So with this chapter I was trying to walk the fine line between "trippy" and still intelligible. Hopefully that worked out?
> 
> You know how a lot of fics have steamy fade dreams with Solas? Lol. Poor Eres and her lack of magic. I've always been fascinated by how a dreamer might interact with someone who's unable to be aware that they're in the fade, and then how a non-mage might feel if a dreamer took control of their dreams. I did something like that waaay early on with chapters 4 and 5, but during that point of the story Eres was much less stressed and under a sleeping enchantment, so she wasn't as close to waking herself up like she is in this chapter. 
> 
> Ugh, there's so much I want to say in this note, but I'll try to keep it as short as possible for you guys, so here:
> 
> 1) I painted a [picture](http://maizzycakes.tumblr.com/post/122604138622/happier-times-eres-lavellan-and-solas) of their short kiss in here because I am particularly deep in Solavellan hell right now.  
> 2) I commissioned a painting of the start of chapter 14, so also kind of this chapter! It's not done yet, but I'll throw it in the author's notes for the next chapter if any of you want to see :D  
> 3) The last advisor finally walked in on Eres naked, yessss.


	33. Peaches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 100K WORDS. I REPEAT: 100K WORDS.  
> I highly recommend you all pop some bottles and shower me in champagne and congratulations.  
> Or, you know, just read this chapter :D
> 
> Thank you all so so much for the support <3  
> It really is astonishing to me that I've written this much, but it's even more astounding that everyone reading this author's note will have read this far. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

“What is the point of this?” Solas asked, voice rasping from lack of use. 

“Ah, he speaks at last. Going to tell me your name now?”

The dwarf woman rose from where she had been writing at a half-rotted desk. Small swirls of dust kicked up as she stepped lightly across the grimy marble of what he assumed was an abandoned chateau.

“The question stands,” he said again, though it was still more of a croak.

Taegin crouched and studied him for a moment before pulling a water skin off of her belt. She held it up to his lips and tipped the mercifully cool liquid into his mouth, dribbling some down his chin in the process. Solas strained forward to the canteen, leaning into his chains reflexively to get closer to the water when she pulled it away.

“Cutting losses,” Taegin said, corking the canteen and tucking it back on her belt. She sat on the ground in front of him, in what looked to be a significantly more comfortable position than his current kneeling one, so that their eyes were on a level. “I’m guessing that’s a ‘no’ to the name.”

Apparently that would be all he was getting of the water, but not all that he would be getting of her company. His prolonged silence over the past few days had earned a large portion of disdain from Taegin, though it had not outright devolved into abuse past the usual method of restraining and depriving a captive. That and the repeated, unpleasant templar smitings meant to keep his power in check.

She seemed to be settling in for something longer than a brief taunt, which suggested that she might be persuaded into elaborating. It was more ideal than he could have hoped for, given the circumstances.

“What losses are being cut?” He asked.

She hadn’t killed him, which made each moment since his initial capture decreasingly likely to be his last. After he had survived that first night in captivity, most of the fear had burned away, leaving a slow, pulsing anger with touch of annoyance in its wake. Taegin, however, did not have to know that. 

“Not that I have to explain myself to you,” she said, giving him a humorless little smile, “But I was hired to assassinate the Inquisitor. Now that I’ve dropped the contract, I’m thinking the Inquisition will at least have enough funds to cover the fee I lost.”

“Dropped the contract? Interesting.”

“And why is that so interesting?” Anger flared in her voice and he knew he had struck a nerve. Solas ignored her question.

“What will your former employers think of your refusal?”

“Ahhh, that’s cute, Peaches. You think I’m going to tell you things,” She said with a chuckle. She patted his head and got up to go back over to the desk at the other side of the room.

“Why not tell me things?” He called to her, “I will either be dead or you will have what I presume to be enough money to disappear. What have you to lose?”

Taegin stilled.

“Professional pride? Besides that, I just plain don’t like you.”

“Oh, but your words do wound me,” he said dryly. Switching tactics, he asked, “Do you truly think the Inquisitor will pay for a serving man?”

She turned and regarded him, eyes glinting in the low light.

“Just a man servant, huh?”

“Yes,” he said. Taegin raised a brow. She already knew he was a mage, judging by the templar treatment he had received ever since he had been captured, so Solas decided there was little harm in adding, “I also offer my services regarding the study of the fade.”

In a flash, Taegin was in front of him, bending down so that they were nose to nose. Her lips curled up into a smile.

“Any other ‘services’ you offer?”

“None that are any of your concern,” he said, holding her gaze. 

Taegin was silent for a few moments, before she took a step back and sat on the ground again. 

“Shall we make it a trade then? You tell me what I want to know and I might deign to let you in on what sorts of dangers await our mutual friend.”

“Friend?”

“Is that your first question?”

Solas thought it over and pragmatism won out over personal curiosity.

“No. Who has put a price on the Inquisitor’s head?” He asked.

“Who hasn’t?” Taegin answered, smiling as she leaned back on her hands. 

He sighed, frustrated.

“Why is Reese… Eres the Inquisitor?” 

“She was chosen by Andraste,” Solas answered promptly. If his captor was going to play games, he would reply in kind. “Who, specifically, hired you?”

“Persistent, aren’t we? Fine. I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore. The Inquisition kicked some nobles out of their city in the Free Marches. Wycome, I think it was. A coalition is out for blood because apparently ‘fucking knife ears’ are living in their mansions.” Taegin’s eyes widened as she spoke and she let out a sharp laugh when she had finished. “So that was Reese’s doing, was it? That’s…” She trailed off shaking her head. “ _Why_ was she chosen by Andraste?”

Solas smiled mildly at her. 

“I cannot pretend to understand the workings of the divine.”

“Oh, come on. I told you what you wanted to know.”

He thought it over. If he was to continue this game and move into the realm of ‘personal curiosity’, he would have to eventually give information to receive what he wanted in return. 

“Eres started off as a prisoner, but through a series of choices won the respect and trust of the Inquisition. Beyond that, I am unsure of how to answer you. There are far more questions than answers surrounding the mark on her hand.”

“Right. And the non-bullshit version?”

“That is the full story. If you would like me to go into specifics, you only need answer my questions in return. Will it not be a blow to your professional reputation to be seen abandoning contracts?”

Taegin shook her head and looked away from him.

“You’re really stuck on that aren’t you?”

“Yes. For one who has already tried to have the Inquisitor killed, it seems illogical.”

Taegin leaned forward in a flash, grabbing a fistful of his shirt in one hand and cold-cocking him across the jaw with the other. Solas rocked back, jaw smarting. If his wrists had not been chained, he would’ve reflexively held a hand to his face. As it was, all he could do was hiss in a breath and blink away the stars popping up in his eyes. 

“Is that what she’s told you? Is that what she really thinks?” 

Taegin dragged him closer by his shirt, fury written across her face. 

“Yes,” said Solas, glaring back at her. 

She dropped his shirt and sat back, pressing her palms into her eyes. Solas stayed silent, knowing that it would provoke her into saying more than any words could. He could not fathom how Eres could have possibly have misread the situation. Eres was clever; good at spotting the holes in ill-thought out logic, but Taegin was acting as if his suggestion that she had tried to kill Eres was a blasphemy. The embers of his curiosity were stirred. He did not have to wait long.

Words burst out of Taegin, as she sat covering her face, “I paid off a guard and used my templars to stage the whole thing! _That_ is how much I wasn’t going to kill her. Some fuckwit got it into his head after she escaped that he should actually spread around her warrant. He was dealt with. Fuck, it wasn’t supposed to… She was stealing from me! I had to teach her a lesson. I _should have_ killed her but I… Listen. This is none of your fucking business. So how about you just go back to sleeping and I’ll go back to using every ounce of my will power not to slit your throat. Sounds good? Great.”

She stood abruptly and walked away from him.

His jaw ached and he was sure that there would be a spectacular bruise forming. Not that it would matter if Eres did not remember his hasty messages in her dreams. He had tried every night to contact her, but she always awoke faster than he could tell her anything useful. Last night had been different. He might have gotten through. He had held that collapsing dream together as best he could and now he could only hope that either Eres’ memory would pull through or that Taegin would make a mistake and give him time to slip away. He hoped it would be the latter. From what he had seen in the fade, Eres was on-edge and sleeping badly. If he could escape on his own, she would not be further burdened with saving him and he would stop distracting from the larger problems at hand. She was unaware of his actual importance in the grand scheme of things, past whatever feelings their relationship had weighed in his favor. Yet, he was certain she was using time and energy to find him rather than focusing on running the Inquisition and helping to stabilize Orlais. It showed a marked lack of reason on her part, if he was correct, and it warned him of what his own actions might contain in the future, should anything happen to Eres in a similar manner. The thought was disquieting on multiple levels. First, to picture her captive, then to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would move mountains to find her.

"You know what? No. Tell me, asshat, are you sleeping with her? I saw the way she grabbed your hand in that library. Reese isn't touchy-feely unless she's wasted or comfortable with someone and she's never comfortable with people."

Solas pressed his lips together. This was not any of Taegin's concern. 

Taegin's face turned red, anger building as she correctly interpreted his silence.

"Answer the question."

"Yes."

The tension in the air dissipated and Taegin deflated. She collapsed onto a nearby armchair and crossed her arms over her chest. 

"Why you?"

Solas thought it over and came up empty-handed. What _had_ he done to win her over to such an extent? To her he was practically, as Dorian had put it, a “hobo”, full of stories she could never understand about the fade. There was no appeal from his status, like there had been almost exclusively in his past. That perhaps, was part of why he loved her. She had treated him as she would any other person, judging him not by his elevated position in society or his seeing only a savior through starry eyes. All Eres had to go on were his own thoughts and actions. He didn't understand why she had even been interested in him enough to chase him in the first place. He supposed he could be clever with his words, but that was more suited to leading unsuspecting women into bed, rather than developing an emotional bond. A bond of which he still had no ironclad confirmation, but presumably, hopefully, regrettably, of love.

"I honestly do not know,” he said quietly.

"Good," Taegin said pointedly, "Then you'll do well to remember that even though she's a fuck-up, she's the most ballsy and brilliant fuck up I've ever met."

On that count, they could agree. 

"Kind words from one who is currently trying to extort her."

"Business and love should never mix,” Taegin sighed after a few moments.

No. They shouldn’t. 

A knock came at the door and Taegin jumped, sitting up from her slouched position on the dilapidated armchair. 

“Come in,” she called. 

A man that Solas recognized as one of the templars employed by Taegin entered, saying, “Tae, trouble.”

“What is it?”

“We’ve got company.”

She snorted in annoyance. “Yeah, Roge, I assumed. Specifics? Are they Inquisition?” Her eyes slid to Solas as she spoke.

“No. Templars. They seem… off. Might just be because they’re Orlesian.”

“Doubt it,” she said. “Not with all of the fuckery happening these days. Let’s go inform them that they’re intruding on private property, shall we?” She got up and grabbed a curved scabbard from where it rested against the wall. She glanced back at Solas. “And give him one for the road.”

The templar grinned and moved into the room, raising a hand in the now familiar lead up to the mana drain they all seemed to take such pleasure in performing. 

Pain crashed down on Solas like a boulder cracking over him. What little stirrings of magic he had felt returning to him were viciously driven away, leaving him slumped against his bindings, gasping for breath.

“Well,” said Taegin, all hollow smiles from the little he could see of her when he tried to raise his head. “Tah, Peaches. Don’t miss me too much while I’m gone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOOK at this kick ass commission I got from [Blackheath-art](http://blackheath-art.tumblr.com/)! Highly recommend you commission this person if you're on the edge about getting someone to draw something. Super talented, super professional.
> 
>  


	34. How Far the Mighty Have Fallen

“More trees. Woo,” Iron Bull grumbled as they rounded a corner to find, yes, in fact, more trees. 

“Fairbanks said there was a chateau in here somewhere.” Eres had long since given up on any efforts to _not_ appear out of her mind with worry, so the tension in her voice earned no questioning looks from her companions. 

They were so close. Taegin had to be in here somewhere. Eres would’ve bet her life that Taegin would not just settle for a cave when there was a mansion available, but having to bet Solas’ life? Gods. She had to be right. Had to. 

“There!” Sera called, pointing excitedly ahead. “Friggin trashed painty-looking bit of rock up ahead. Straight, though. Like a wall. Maybe that’s it?”

Eres sped up her steps, breaking into a light jog as she waved a hand at everyone else to stop. They would need to infiltrate, if possible. Taegin would have failsafes in place she could activate if an invading group of people just showed up on her base’s doorstep. Potentially even one that would remotely kill Solas if Taegin felt the need. She had done it before. On one of their past jobs, Crows are had moved in on the Free Marches, hired by the person they were trying to get a ransom from to kill Taegin, Eres and everyone else involved in the kidnapping of a lord. Taegin had pulled the plug as soon as the fighting started. A last little bit of revenge on the Lord’s family for daring to cross her.

Swallowing hard, Eres crouched low to the ground, drawing up on what was indeed the chateau they were probably looking for. She crept along to where the wall was partially hidden by some low hanging tree branches and hoisted herself. Crouching on top of it, she could see into the inner courtyard, but she did not like at all what was there. 

Blood was smeared over the cracked and rubbled stone paths of the courtyard. Lots of blood. Long smears dragged along the paths, disappearing without closer inspection into the grass leading to the gate. 

Eres clamped down on the part of her mind that had begun screaming at the sight. 

_No._

He was still out there, and he still needed her. That was all she could afford let herself think.

 

\---

 

"Really?" Solas snapped, frustration finally getting the better of him. 

“Shut up, Peaches."

Taegin, who was now also bound and being dragged along beside him, glared until he rolled his eyes away. 

“Keep quiet!” The red templar that was their current captor barked, giving an extra tug on the chain binding Taegin and Solas to his clenched fist. She stumbled forward, falling to her knees on the muddy path leading away from the chateau, but Solas stayed upright.

_How far the mighty have fallen._

Solas caught himself before saying that thought out loud, as he watched his ex-jailer struggle no-handedly to her feet while the templars all around growled with impatience. He couldn’t quite bring himself to continue prodding at her. Not kicking those that were already down, literally in Taegin’s case, was a lesson he had learned throughout his long years. No matter how irritating he found some of the aforementioned “down” people.

“Not a word,” Taegin hissed through clenched teeth as they began moving forward again.

“I hadn’t dreamed of it.”

On their forced march went through the seemingly endless canopy of trees, punctuated only by a few short stops as what seemed to be the leader of their little cavalcade paused to consult a map, muttering about “fucking cliffs” under his breath. Solas was alarmed to note that they passed no short of five smaller red templar camps as they were led to wherever it was they were headed. 

It had come as a shock when one of the lyrium-infested templars had come through the door instead of Taegin back at the chateau. He had grown so used to seeing them fall as easily as a thought, that it hadn’t quite occurred to him that Taegin and her associates would not be up to the task. Perhaps they would’ve been, if it hadn’t been such a large party that descended on their camp. Solas had been able to hear the fighting through the broken window panes in the room he had been kept in, though his bound position had not afforded him a view of what had transpired. 

“Where do you think they’re taking us?” Taegin whispered.

He glanced over at her as they walked. “I am unsure. They spoke to you, did they not?”

“‘Spoke’ is a strong word. It was more like they demanded that I supply their shit lyrium and then killed Brewer and took my templars when I declined.”

She looked straight forward, jaw clenching and unclenching. 

“I see. I am sorry for your loss.”

“Yes, well. Looks as though they’re getting their dealer in the Free Marches after all. Still don’t know why you’re here, though.”

Solas stayed silent as they plowed onwards. As they were walking past a hissing waterfall, Taegin spoke again.

“How bad is this red lyrium stuff? It’s what you Inquisition people are trying to get rid of, right?”

Solas kept his face blank and stared forward as well. Annoyance that Taegin would speak of the Inquisition in present company burbled up through the stranglehold he’d had on his emotions ever since he had originally been taken captive.

“C’mon. They already know you’re Inquisition. Clearly it doesn’t matter either way. So red lyrium.”

“Thought that was relevant information for them, did you?” He asked.

“Yeah, you know what? I did,” She snapped back. “I don’t owe you anything. If trading you away would’ve gotten my guys out of there, I would’ve done it in a heartbeat. You’re still here, and I’m not getting any less boned, though, so how about you go ahead and tell me what I’m about to put all of my templar friends on?” The chains around her wrists clinked as she tried to gesture out of what he presumed to be irritation, despite the bindings.

It was at that moment that he felt the slow trickle of his magic begin to well up again. The red templars had not driven it away when they themselves had taken him prisoner and he had wondered how long it would take for him to be of any use.

Taegin turned her head fully to him, a small smile playing around her lips. 

“Besides, you’re only a serving man. Not like you’re the one going around and personally smashing all of their fun druggy things to bits, right?”

A silent understanding passed between them as they locked eyes. She had planned it. Solas had no prior experience to draw from in regards to templar powers actually being used on him, but Taegin knew exactly how they worked. He had been surprised by her near clockwork timing at keeping his powers in check and wondered at how many other mages she had performed such an ignominy on in the past. Fortunately, it now seemed she was directing that knowledge for him, instead of against. Or rather, she seemed to expect he would be helping both of them out of this situation. 

“Fine,” he said. “Red lyrium is a corrupted form of the regular variety. Equally as addictive, but eventually it turns those who consume it into mindless monsters.”

The templar walking next to him with bits of crystal growing out of his neck growled. 

“I see. Well.. Shit,” Taegin murmured.

They passed endless trees, walking along the edge of high rockwalls dappled by the sunlight filtering through the leaves. He didn’t have enough mana to do anything that would not immediately bring the templars down on them, which meant he would have to find an exterior means by which to distract them. A rockslide, perhaps? He could send a small gravity well out and potentially make that happen, then freeze and snap his bindings. 

They came upon yet another templar camp, but this time their captors stopped. The leader came back to stand before Solas and Taegin and asked, “You, knife-ear. You read elven?”

Odd. 

“Yes,” Solas answered cautiously, unsure of where this could possibly be leading.

“Good. Thought you might. Best remember that your life depends on that not being a lie.” He called to the others, “All right, restock. We’re going in after all.”

Taegin and Solas stood watching as the templars around them shuffled through boxes of supplies and hastily took a few hits of lyrium. The sun was beginning to slant long shadows through the tall trees. He wondered where they planned to take them so close to nightfall. 

“So,” Taegin whispered, shuffling closer to him. “Feeling better?”

“Marginally, yes. Thank you for your concern.”

“Oh good. That’s just damned skippy. No rush or anything.”

Solas didn’t hold in the sigh of frustration that seemed to constantly want to fight it’s way free whenever Taegin spoke. 

After a few minutes they were off again, this time leaving the trail behind. It was not long before far in the distance Solas saw what looked to be a moving tree. As they grew closer, the large shape turned out to be a giant. One of many. They walked slowly, tending to their herds amidst the gigantic trees, taking no notice of the troop of approaching templars. 

Well, they would take notice soon enough. 

Solas took half a moment to decide whether he would be freeing Taegin along with him, and decided his chances of escape were higher with her help.

He spotted a rock along their trajectory, and when he got close enough he kicked it over, hitting Taegin’s foot to get her attention. She looked up at him and he inclined his chin ever so slightly to let her know that their escape was at hand. Looking off over her head, Solas took aim at the nearest giant off in the distance and sent a whisper of lighting flying at its eye. 

With a roar that shook the ground, the giant stomped the forest floor, looking wildly around with its uninjured eye to find the source of its distress. It froze when it saw their little group.

“To arms!” The templar leader called as the giant began pounding its way towards them. Solas was pleased to note that a few more giants had heard the cry, large heads swiveling to find the commotion.

Chaos descended as the templars ran forward and the giant began picking up hunks of rock and earth to hurl their way. The giant bellowed again at the dozen templars nipping around its ankles, swords flashing. Their captor stared, transfixed as the monster managed to get a massive hand around one of his cohorts and smashed him in one easy clench of its fist.

“Got anything to get us out of these?” Taegin asked quickly.

Solas tried to freeze the links tethering him to her, but could not muster a spell cold enough. Drained, he shook his head “no”. 

Taegin growled in frustration. She gave the chain holding her to the distracted templar a pull and knocked him off balance.  In a flash, she leapt and got the chain binding her to Solas over the templar’s head and around his throat. 

“Going to help me or what?” She grunted as she held the man down with her half of the chain. Solas quickly pulled his end taught, collapsing the man’s windpipe. In under a minute, he was dead. They were still tethered together, but they were technically free. 

Another two giants stomped up to the fight, but even through the madness one of the templars had spotted them.

“The prisoners are loose! Get them!”

Taegin and Solas took off, running flat out in the opposite direction of the camp they had stopped at before entering giant territory. Solas looked over his shoulder and saw that all of the templars had started running as well, charging after them with the three giants in tow. 

“Stop looking and run!” Taegin shouted at him as they dove through a patch of bushes.

“I’m perfectly able to- OOF!” A rock he hadn’t seen behind the scrub brush caught his foot, sending him crashing into a sapling. Taegin jerked to a stop, pulled back by the chain strapping them together. 

“PEACHES. If you get me killed, I’ll haunt you! I swear it!” Taegin screeched as she watched the giants and templars gaining ground. 

Solas snarled and pushed himself past the tree and they were off again. This time with him hastily scanning the area in front of him, lest any more unhelpful trees decided to make an appearance. That was when he spotted Cole. 

Heart hammering, a wave of relief washed over him as the spirit blipped into visibility between the swaying trees up ahead. 

“Cole! Where is Eres?”

But the spirit disappeared again. With a growl of frustration, Solas sped up. 

“What?” Taegin shouted. “Who’s Cole?”

Solas didn’t bother answering to conserve breath. His magic had returned enough for him to throw barriers around himself and Taegin, which made tearing through the myriad branches and twigs less harrowing. Up ahead, Solas began to see stone structures and hoped that they would still be sturdy enough to keep the giants out. 

On his left, Dorian sprung out through a wall of leaves.

“Oh hello,” he said pleasantly, turning and matching Solas’ stride. “It seems as though this mission is a success after all. The giants are a nice touch.”

As if to emphasize his point, the entire forest gave an almighty lurch as a loud crunch of snapping wood announced the fall of one of the behemoths. 

“Who’s he?” Taegin gasped as the three of them sprinted forwards. 

“Dorian Pavus, pleasure to meet you." He leaned forward around Solas to give Taegin a little wave. “Are you the one we’re supposed to be killing?”

“Probably,” she allowed, hopping over a small boulder. 

Iron Bull burst suddenly through a patch of trees up ahead and to the right. 

“Heeey! You’re alright! Good. Be right back,” He said with a grin as he charged in the opposite direction of them, heading directly for the giants still crashing along behind. 

They were almost to the stone structure. Ten more meters and they’d be under cover. 

Another crash sounded as a second giant fell. Solas could hear Iron Bull’s whoop of enthusiasm over the racket of crunching trees and squawking birds. 

And suddenly their feet were pounding across broken old cobblestones. Taegin and Solas flew to the entrance of what looked to be Elvhen ruins as Dorian said, “Go. I should help.” Once they had passed through the doorway into the structure, Solas stopped to watch, pulling Taegin to a halt with him. She grumbled something, but he ignored it. 

There, as the giant came crashing through the tree line, was Eres. She had managed to climb up the giant and was currently standing on its shoulder, a dagger driven deep into its neck. With a deafening roar, the giant fell, hitting the ground and sending up a wave of dust and debris with it. 

Solas was moving back out into the light without a second thought, dragging Taegin along with him. As the dust settled, there she was, standing astride the face-down giant and sheathing her daggers. A hard knot of some emotion that he didn’t know he had been feeling the past few days welled up in his chest as they locked eyes. 

Without a word, she charged at him. 

Then she was in his arms and the world slowed down. He buried his face in her hair, pulling her tight against him as she shook. For a moment, he thought she was crying, but as she pulled back and grabbed his face between her dirty, callous-covered hands, he saw that she was laughing. Tears edged the corners of her eyes, but the smile as she stared at him was a glimpse of pure sunlight. 

He laughed too at the strangeness of this intensity, at the situation as a whole, as his fingers tangled into her hair and pulled her to mouth to his. He hadn’t expected to feel so… exuberant. The worries and anger of the last few days dissolved as their mouth crashed together, all hot breath and soft lips. The adrenaline began to fade and Eres sighed against him, a low hum as she traced her hand along his cheek and over to the back of his head. They broke apart and he leaned his forehead against hers, not wanting to look away from her for a very long time indeed. 

"Chuckles, we all missed you too, but don’t go expecting a greeting like that. At least not from me,” said Varric with a laugh.

Solas and Eres both jumped apart, looking around wildly. 

Standing in a cluster not ten meters away was the entirety of the Inquisition’s inner circle, complete with the trio of advisors that so rarely left Skyhold. 

Solas tried to process the sight of them all there, smiling at him with varying degrees of warmth. The fact that they were there in the first place was… unexpected. He watched these people that he had met along this strange journey in the future, as Eres slid her hand into his. Sera stifling a laugh behind her hand; the First Enchanter rolling her eyes; the Nightingale cracking a small smile; Blackwall steadfastly looking off at a point several feet to his left and turning violently red, and so on. They were all there. And it was with a growing sense of warmth and dread that Solas found himself understanding that even though they did not know the first thing about him, he was somehow considered a part of their group. A friend. 

“They, uh, heard that you were in trouble and volunteered to help,” Eres offered after a moment.

Solas blinked rapidly a few times as those words sank in. “I see. I… Thank you.”

Sera grinned. “You’re a squicky, old bastard, but you’re our squicky, old bastard.”

“Damn straight,” Bull added, smiling broadly. 

“Is this a bad time to ask if you’re going to kill me, orrr….?” Taegin said from behind them. 

Solas turned and noted her carefully smooth expression as she stared at Eres. Eres herself did not waste time with such control. She reached for the dagger at her back and advanced on Taegin with fire in her eyes. 

“Vhenan, wait.”

She paused, looking over her shoulder at him with a quizzical brow. Solas didn’t know what he was going to say until the words found their way out of his mouth. “A trial. Give her a fair trial and let her be judged when there is some distance between this situation and her fate.”

Eres did not lower her dagger. Her fingers tightened around the hilt, but she did not advance any further. After a few heartbeats of silence, she asked in a tight voice, “Why? She tried to _kill_ you. She tried to kill me. Seems to me there’s no difference in what’ll happen to her now or later.”

“Peaches, it’s fine. If this is what she’s got to do, then she's got to do it,” Taegin said calmly, eyeing the dagger in Eres’ raised arm. 

“What, Peaches?” Sera piped up from the back before dissolving in a fit of giggles. “I like her. _Peaches_.”

“Inquisitor, it would be... to perform such an execution without a trial... She is bound and has no way to defend herself. Please do not do this,” Josephine said softly, coming forward to stand next to Eres and laying a hand on her shoulder. There was a general murmur of agreement from the rest of the group.

Eres deflated under her touch. “Fine. She’s under full watch until I see her locked in a cell at Skyhold though. Best have our scouts set up a makeshift prison of sorts while we’re out here. Maybe use some of those cages we’ve scavenged from the red templar camps.” She glared at Taegin. “She’s not very good at being a prisoner.”

Taegin smiled, but it lacked its usual flash. “No. You weren’t either, if I’m remembering correctly.”

Eres snorted in disgust before digging around in her belt pouches for a lock pick and turning back to Solas. 

As his shackles clicked open and his hands were freed, Eres said to the group at large, “Alright. Well, if that hasn’t earned us at least one night of drinking, I don’t know what will.”

Iron Bull and Varric roared their approval and the group headed off towards the nearest camp the Inquisition had set up, with Taegin still bound and in tow. 

“Peaches,” she called quietly before Solas moved to walk up alongside Eres. 

He hung back, letting the others pass, Eres looking at him over her shoulder with a disapproving stare. Iron bull was given the task of holding Taegin’s chains, but he didn’t tug her along like the templars had, instead matching her pace to keep the line slack. 

“If I start to respond to that name, will that be considered tacit agreement to it?” Solas asked. 

“Absolutely. But I just… Look. Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

“No, I didn’t,” he agreed. 

“Don’t… don’t tell Eres what happened. Back in Ostwick, I mean. I want to explain it to her. To apologize.”

Solas raised a brow. 

“Oh don’t look like that. I’m not about to go stealing your ‘vhenan’. Whatever that means.”

“I have no worries on that account,” he said dryly. 

“Yeah. I could see that,” she said, hopping over one of the fallen giant’s arms as they passed through the smashed foliage. “By the way… what _is_ your name?”

Solas chuckled despite himself. “And deprive you of this little game of yours?”

“Deprive away. I’m honestly curious.”

“Solas.”

“I like Peaches better."

"I find that to be entirely unsurprising."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eres knows how to make an entrance. 
> 
> Umm... Ok look. I really wanted to have a moment where Solas realizes that it's not just him and Eres - he's a part of this weird little family too. I need that sort of happiness for him, at least for a bit? Ok? Ok. I know the end of this chapter is a little happier than you usually get from me, but it had to happen. If only so my future angst will sting that much more :P
> 
> Also, sooo so sorry about the slow update! I technically wrote this monster chapter, plus 1.5 oneshots (the .5 is one about Eres' first impressions of Solas!) over the past week and a half, but yeah. Super sorry.
> 
> Thank you, [Salesman](http://archiveofourown.org/users/salesman) for reading over this one for me when I was maginally freaking out :D


	35. Flustered

“Boss.”

“Hmm?”

“BOSS.”

Eres jerked and looked around at Bull, who was holding out a tankard filled with the pigswill the camp they were staying at had thought acceptable to label “Alcohol”. 

“Why don’t you just go over and talk to her?” He asked, sitting down in Solas’ recently vacated seat around the fire and delivering the tankard to Eres’ outstretched hands. 

“That is the last thing I want to do.”

“I’m assuming that the first thing you wanted was to follow Solas into that tent over there while he’s getting that change of clothes.”

“You assume correctly,” Eres agreed, but dug an elbow into Bull’s beefy side just for good measure. 

Bull snorted and swigged from his own, stump-sized cup. “How’s he doing?”

She shrugged, sipping at her own foul brew. “Honestly? Better than I had expected. We haven’t had much of a chance to talk yet, though.” She frowned across the fire again, not liking the way Taegin was seated as far as her cage would allow from the firelight. Too many things could go wrong if Taegin had enough time and enough darkness at her disposal. 

“Stop worrying,” Bull said, nudging her shoulder with his elbow. “Or at least, pick one.”

“What?” 

“Pick one. Worry about your prisoner or enjoy your reunion. Stop torturing yourself by doing both.”

“Am I that obvious?”

“Probably not,” Bull admitted. “But it’s obvious enough to both of the two holding your attention.”

Eres sighed and drank some more beer. Varric and Cassandra were having a heated argument over something or another off a ways from the fire; Sera was playing cards with Blackwall; Dorian was looking over at her and Bull askance, while pretending to pay attention to whatever Scout Harding and Josephine were talking about. He was probably wishing pretty badly right about now that Eres would return his entertainment for later tonight. 

Eres jerked her chin at Dorian when the mage turned back to Josie. “What’s going on there?”

Bull rumbled a little laugh. “He has this picture of the Qunari in his mind - he sees us as this forbidden, terrible thing, and he’s inclined to do the forbidden. So far it’s been pretty fun. Left me a pair of silky underthings before we went off on this whole rescue shitshow.”

Eres raised her cup to him and Bull met it with a clack of wood on wood. “Happy for you guys, Bull.”

“Thanks, Boss. And I’d be happy for you too if this deflection was going better.”

“Can’t even let me get away with one good subject change?” Eres asked with a wry smile. 

“Well, with a good one, yeah. That was not a good one. Go find Solas.”

“Alright, fine. See you later, Bull.”

“Nice talking to you, Boss.”

Eres stood, slightly disappointed to note that if she wanted to be any less steady, she would need to drink significantly more of the alarmingly bad beer. She downed what she had and set the cup on the log she had been seated on before heading around the fire to the tent where Solas had disappeared a handful of minutes before. Taegin spoke as Eres walked past the cage, the first words she had said since being locked in. Eres was surprised that it had taken her this long.

"They killed Brewer."

That drew Eres up short.

"What?"

"The red templars. When they took me and your boyfriend."

Brewer. Eres' heart clenched. Brewer had almost been a friend. Granted, an almost-friend she had planned to never see again, but a friend nonetheless. Many a night had been spent laughing over mugs of terrible beer similar to the one she had recently had clenched in her hand. 

"Took Roge too," Taegin continued, eyes reflecting weirdly in the firelight. Oddly glossy, almost as if.. oh shit. 

"Are you crying?" Eres asked, alarmed at this turn of events. This was unprecedented. 

Taegin blinked rapidly before her strictly-business smile flickered to life. "Would that really be so surprising? Do you think I'm completely heartless?"

"Yes," Eres said without hesitation.

Taegin stood and leaned against the bars separating her from Eres. "If I'm so heartless, why didn't I hunt you down, hmm? You really think you're good enough to have gotten away from me? That if I had wanted you dead, you could have somehow outrun me? Pretty full of yourself there, Reese."

"Me full of myself?" Eres snarled, voice rising. A few heads swiveled in their direction and Eres tried to modulate her pitch down to a lower register. "Full of myself? I'm not the one thinking they can play god with people's lives. Look at you, even now you're trying to tell me that you have complete control over everything."

"You idiot," Taegin spat, slapping a hand against the cage. "What I'm trying to tell you is that you were never in danger from me."

Eres barked a laugh. 

"Ah, that's rich. Nice talk for someone behind bars."

"Point," Taegin acknowledged, thumping her head against those very same bars. "But that doesn't make you right. You were stealing from me."

"I was doing it becau!-" Eres began, but drew herself short, sucking in a long slow breath and blowing it back out again. "Forget it. I don't want to hear any of this."

"Reese-" Taegin began as Eres turned and walked towards the tent that had been her destination in the first place. Taegin said something too quiet for Eres to hear as she pushed open the tent flap and was greeted with a view of Solas half-dressed and fast asleep. Eres smiled to herself as she watched him, breathing soft and easy. He really was okay. That was nothing short of a miracle. She should probably leave him to his sleep, but the idea of returning to the party and feeling Taegin's eyes on her again was nothing short of repulsive. Instead, she tugged off her boots and quietly laid down on the other bedroll in the tent in an effort to not disturb him.

“Reese!” Taegin called again, as Eres’ head hit the pillow. Solas rolled over and cracked an eye, watching her.

"Ah sorry. I was trying not to wake you," she mumbled, turning on her side to face him.

Solas reached out across the space between them and draped an arm over her waist, a silent request for her to move closer. She obliged, scooting from her bedroll to his, sinking into the warm confines of his arms. 

"Hello," he murmured, dipping his head to brush his lips over her cheek. "Falling asleep was not my intention; my apologies."

Sleepy Solas was a new one to Eres. Usually he was either awake or asleep - both done with purpose and ending the moment the other began. But now he was warm and heavy and slow. Different, but definitely not unpleasant. At this point he could’ve been in a fiery temper and throwing things around the tent and she wouldn’t have found it unpleasant. He was here. Safe. She had never quite managed to save anyone before, not on a one-person scale, at any rate, but somehow it had worked out. If she had been the praying type, she would’ve been spouting soliloquies of thanks to any god that would listen. 

“Hi,” she replied, tilting her chin up to catch his bottom lip between her own. 

“Reese! Talk to me! You can’t just leave like that!” Taegin’s disembodied voice called from outside. 

Eres winced. Solas’ eyes lost some of their hazy quality as he pulled back and regarded her in the almost non-existent light. Without a word, he extricated himself and pushed up to his feet, holding out a hand to Eres. 

“You’re not going to try to make me talk to her?” Eres hissed, aghast.

“No, but I am certainly not opposed to finding a quieter spot for some time alone with you.”

Gods. She loved him. 

The realization smacked her upside the head with its sudden intensity. She had thought that she loved him, probably even knew it deep down, but now it was there as a glaring fact - a flash burn on her mind's eye. 

Heart thudding, she took his hand, and gulped down some of her panic at that thought. 

Solas grabbed his shirt, pack and staff, slipping the first two on before carefully lifting the rear flaps of the tent and peeking out. He turned back, a devilish little smile playing over his lips as she finished strapping on her daggers. “I assume you are up to the task of sneaking out?”

She leveled an eyebrow at the blatant challenge. The smile on his face grew as she slipped past him out into the night. 

“Quiet!” Cassandra barked from somewhere back towards the fire as Eres made her way through the shadows, Solas following close behind. To Eres’ utter delight, the seeker seemed to have intimidated Taegin into silence. Ha. She had been on the receiving end of the prisoner treatment not so long ago herself, and hadn’t backed down nearly as quickly from Cassandra. 

They quickly reached the edge of the camp and climbed down the rocky slope. As soon as her feet hit the springy grass, Eres felt lighter and freer than she had in months. 

Solas awkwardly made his way down, trying not to bang his staff against the rocks. He clipped it once on one of the boulders, a small clack echoing out in the dark. When he made it to flat ground and turned to face her, he was met with Eres’ best level stare. 

“Can I ‘sneak out’, he says,” she murmured, grinning. “Really?”

Solas smiled back and together they set off into the dark woods. 

Even knowing that there were giants, red templars and possibly deranged nugs running around, Eres was not at all concerned to be out here alone. It simply felt too good to be away and walking hand in hand with Solas. 

“We probably should have left a note. Wouldn’t want people think they need to start another manhunt so soon after our last,” Eres said at a regular volume after they had gotten a decent ways away from camp. 

Solas chuckled. “I highly doubt anyone will go near that tent before morning. Not now that they know our reunion could possibly entail more than a brief ‘aneth’a’ra’.”

Apparently the freedom of the cool night air was catching. Solas looked as exhilarated as she felt. “Look at you!” She said through an incredulous laugh. “I expected you to be the blushy one in this relationship, and here you are, suggesting away.”

He adopted a stern expression. “I am merely stating fact; not devolving into wild and, frankly, rampant speculation as to which of us has less control over their circulatory system.”

Eres laughed, full and proper. It was so rare to catch him outright cracking jokes.  

Solas stopped and caught her cheek in his hand, smiling. “Clearly, you are not remembering much of our earliest conversations.”

_“To find interesting areas, one must be interesting.”_

_“Is this why you joined the Inquisition? To find more of the fade?” Eres was curious, despite herself. The idea of being able to actually explore the fade was intriguing. What was even more intriguing was that this line of conversation seemed to be the only one that could get this man to make a facial expression beyond “fake smile” and “highly disapproving”._

_“I joined the Inquisition because we were all in terrible danger. If our enemies destroy the world, then I would have no where to lay my head while dreaming of the fade,” he replied, raising a brow at her, probably to drive home that message once more._

_Eres gulped down the urge to shoot him a childish retort, but it was a near thing. He hadn’t yet let her live down her initial escape attempt, no matter how well she was doing at not sneering at the Andrastians that still insisted on bowing to her. He was both irritating and helpful in that respect. It was a relief to know that someone understood her feelings about being here in this godsawful, snowy, prison-town, but it also meant that he felt justified in not letting her too far out of his sight. Though truthfully, it wasn’t necessary any more._

_Three months had passed since she had failed to escape the Inquisition, and many, many things had changed in those three months. For one, she was starting to feel like a person again, and less like a painted cut-out of one with daggers and a glowing hand attached. Varric and their newest recruit, Iron Bull, had been significantly helping with that through a rigorous regime of battle stories, booze and bawdy jokes. Getting outside of this tiny town helped too. Eres always felt most at home out in the woods or deep in the cities. These little in-between places? Awful._

_Solas seemed to be losing his own outsider-status more slowly than she, even though he was here of his own free-will. The closest she had come to seeing some actual personality crack through had been when he was confronted with one of their other new recruits, Sera. Solas had tried to say something in Elvhen to Sera and she had absolutely shut him down, drawing out one, lone, vicious “Fenedhis lasa” from him. Eres had nearly fallen over in surprise. Nobody could toss out a curse like that without having at least a bit of personality tucked away somewhere. Nor could they have so effectively followed her everywhere, sometimes even without her noticing. The man had a story. A story she intended to puzzle out. It wasn’t long after that she had found out that talking to him about the fade was another way to actually get a peek at what was going on behind those stern, gray eyes. A less explosive way than insulting their shared heritage._

_Which was how they had ended up here today. Today she was planning to try a different approach - to see if he responded to other forms of prodding, past insults._

_“Well, here’s hoping that works out for you,” Eres said with a nod and a small smile. She didn’t really care how Solas got his jollies, but if this worked for him, hopefully the world would stick around long enough for him to keep doing it._

_“Thank you. In truth, I have enjoyed experiencing more of life to find more of the fade.”_

_Sensing an opening to test out her theory regarding how he’d react to some plain, old flirting, she asked, “How so?”_

_“You train to flick a dagger or an arrow to your target-”_

_“Never an arrow,” Eres muttered under her breath._

_Solas shot her a quizzical look, but continued, “The grace with which you move is a pleasing side-benefit. You have chosen a path whose steps you do not dislike because it leads to a destination you enjoy. As have I.”_

_He was practically doing the work for her in the way he was steering this conversation. Very convenient. Eres already had a vague idea of how to work this plan. Likely he would mumble in disbelieving dismay if she came on too hard. Maybe even run away. Better to start the flirting off light. A nice, abrupt suggestion. That should be enough to get a lone woodsman sputtering away all on its own. It had worked well enough on the Commander._

_Eres smirked. “So you’re suggesting I’m graceful?”_

_Solas smiled at her. Actually smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling up as his chin raised a notch. “No. I am declaring it. It was not a subject for debate.”_

_She was pretty sure her heart stopped beating. Did he just…? What?_

_Eres tried to say something, anything, clever, but what came out was, “Mmhfgh.”_

_His smile grew, as did, she was sure, the fabulously red tint to her cheeks. This wasn’t supposed to happen._

_With a vague sort of wave, and a garbled farewell, Eres took off, walking away at a brisk clip. This… this bore thought._

“Oh gods, don’t remind me,” Eres laughed, liking the way Solas had placed his other hand on her waist and his face very near hers. Both very, very good things.

Things took a turn for the even better when his hand slipped under her shirt, trailing up her back.

“I enjoy earning your blushes,” he said, smirking as he ran his thumb over her cheek and his hand down towards her ass.

“I enjoy you earning them, too.”

She bit her lip, purposefully holding his gaze, and watched his eyes darken. At least they were on a more even footing these days, in terms of the sort of sway they held over each other. He loved her, despite all of the baggage she seemed to keep dropping on him. And she loved him. She loved him, she loved him.

“Solas I… before… this… I need to say something.”

Confusion and worry took turns flickering over his face and he leaned back to get a good look at her. “Is something wrong?”

“No! No no no. The opposite, actually. When you were gone… but then now you’re back and you…I… ” She blew out a breath, frustrated at how much of a mess she was making of this. This was no good. She was nervous. That hadn’t happened in a while. Solas took a step back from her, releasing her from his grip and frowning as he tried to understand what she was saying. She wished him luck with that. She herself had no idea what words were even coming out of her mouth. 

“Vhenan?” He asked after she floundered for a few more heartbeats.

She couldn’t say it. Bad things happened when she let herself get attached to people. Wasn’t this whole adventure an exercise in that?

“You are important to me,” Eres blurted out. Disappointment and worry washed over her. Those were not the three words that had been dancing around the edges of her mind for weeks. These words… sort of conveyed the point, but they were not quite right. And yet they might still be that damning factor - that verbal admission that could signal fate to let loose hell on Solas. She brought a hand up to her face, pinching the bridge of her nose. 

_“_ Eres.”

She dropped the hand, but didn’t look up, instead shakily sighing out, “Haaaa. Words-“ 

Solas swooped in on her, his mouth catching the rest of her attempted explanation as his hands caught her face and dragged her up into the kiss. It wasn’t quite a continuation of earlier when they had been interrupted by their audience. Yes, it had the same intensity, the same breathy, overwhelming sense of relief that he was safe and no longer slipping away from her reach, but it was also a slower sort of kiss. More deliberate, as though he was laying out the story of all that she wanted to say to him with this one solid meeting of skin on skin. 

His arms slipped around her waist, and she gasped against his lips as he pushed her back a few deliberate steps so that her shoulder blades made contact with the rough bark of a tree.  

“As you are to me,” he murmured, drawing back for breath.

She smiled at him, heart racing a little too fast. “Good.”

“Good,” he echoed, before leaning back into the kiss.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maizzy tries to write fluff. It is awkward for everyone involved *sobs*. But for real, this chapter... I've probably just been sitting on it too long :( 
> 
> HEY so, I've been so slow about posting this new chapter because  
> 1) I wrote this [prequel to Wander Silent](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4417901/chapters/10036520) that y'all should probably read  
> . It's actually a flashback gone rogue XD  
> 2) Life has been absolutely crazy for me and i just haven't had a good writing sit-down in a while.  
> and 3) I had to redo a bit of my outline when I wrote that prequel because it was originally supposed to be a flashback. Kinda left myself in the lurch by doing it separately because it screwed up my plans for these chapters by being a separate thing XD whoops
> 
> also, 4) I couldn't figure out how to cut off this damn chapter. Lol.
> 
> But hey, hi, how are you?


	36. On a Number of Levels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW  
> 

They broke away from the kiss, Solas holding her eye contact as carefully as he held the hem of her shirt. “May I?”

“Do you even need to ask at this point?” Eres breathed, feeling a little light-headed. 

“Always,” he said with a smile, tugging her forward by the thin bit of cloth.

Butterflies banged around in her stomach. Gods. What was wrong with her? This was not her first go around. Not even her first with Solas, and yet she had to clamp her mouth shut over a nervous titter of laughter.  She wanted to run around singing at the top of her lungs, and she wanted to go find the nearest cave, crawl into it and hide for the next dozen or so years. Instead of doing either, she slipped the leather dagger harness off her back and let them fall to the ground. 

Solas gently pulled her shirt up, Eres raising her arms to let it fully slip away. When the fabric passed her head, she was left staring at Solas. He was looking at her in a way that made her heart practically stage a jailbreak through her rib cage. It was a wonder that he couldn’t hear it thudding away in the quiet woods. Taking deep breaths only seemed to aggravate the situation - each lungful of air only encouraging the butterflies to ever more fluttering. 

“Eres, are you feeling unwell?” His terrifyingly tender look shifted into concern. 

“No,” she gasped, voice managing to crack despite her monosyllabic reply. What in the void was happening? Her heart was practically dancing the Remigold in there. For that matter, her legs felt like she had left their bones back at the camp. Eres rolled her shoulders, shaking out her arms to hopefully knock loose some of the dizzying warmth that had taken hold of her. She swung them back and forth a few times, but her whole body still tingled in a distracting, if not entirely unpleasant, way.

Solas raised a brow and held out her shirt. “Are we about to enter a brawl? Vhenan, if you wish to return to camp, I would much prefer you to say so. Causing you discomfort is far from what I had intended.” His words added another wallop of the weird thuds to Eres’ chest. 

“I’m good, I’m good,” she insisted. “Let’s do this.”

“Your hands are shaking,” he observed, and then tossed her shirt back her way before sitting down on the ground. She caught it, toying with it in her, indeed, shaking hands. 

“I’m not good,” she admitted after a few silent moments. 

“That was the general impression I was getting, yes. Sit?” He offered, patting the grass next to him. Eres pulled the shirt back on and sat. Solas draped a warm arm over her shoulders and she leaned against him, tucking her head against the crook of his neck. “Would you like to talk about it?”

She turned her head to half hide her face against the soft wool tunic covering his chest. “No, but I’m trying to be better about that.” 

He chuckled and tightened his grip around her, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “Very responsible of you.”

“You know me,” Eres sighed. “All over this responsibility thing.”

Solas’ free hand came around and brushed her hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. 

“I think that’s part of what’s going on, really,” she continued, easing by degrees into the idea of talking through her flare of feeling. “You getting taken? My fault. But we fixed it and you’re here…”  Eres tilted her head up, trying to get a look at his face as she felt the worry bleed into her voice. “Are you really ok?”

“Yes, I truly am. Tired, perhaps, but well,” he murmured, pressing a kiss into her hair. 

“Oh shit,” Eres muttered. “I shouldn’t be keeping you awake if we aren’t-“

“Vhenan. Conversation with you is not in any way a downgrade from other activities we might have engaged in.”

Eres sighed again, settling back with her cheek pressed against his chest. “That’s the other part.” The thudding in Eres’ chest redoubled its speed, but it had taken on a distinctly softer quality since joining him on the ground. She hadn’t really stopped to let herself realize how different it was with him since that first night they had spent together. Even that night, she had only given his words the briefest of considerations before letting herself be swept along with the tide. 

“What is?” 

Eres grabbed at a blade of grass and carefully started shredding it as she spoke. “This conversation. The worry. The missing you. The relief. I don’t know. All of it. Everything’s been such a whirlwind since I joined the Inquisition that I’ve hardly had a moment to think.”

Solas sat very still, the hand on her shoulder stopping its trailing circles. Realizing the way her words could be taken, Eres dropped the grass and patted his thigh to reassure him. How he could have doubts about how she felt towards him was beyond her. Oh, that was right, because she was incapable of getting the words out. “No. Not in a bad way,” she said quickly. “Now that the dust is settling and we have this likely to be very short moment of peace. I’m just… freaking out a bit. You’re here and I can stop worrying and you’re so… you. And you’re… you feel like… I’m just… comfortable.”

“Being comfortable makes you uncomfortable?” Solas asked, a note of wry humor in his voice.

“Pretty much,” she laughed. Eres sat up straighter and pressed her palms to her eyes until she saw stars. “Gods that makes no sense.”

He caught her wrist, gently pulling one of her hands away from her face. “You are out of practice,” he said, running a thumb along the back of her hand. “Or perhaps you have never been in it. The idea of allowing yourself to… consider someone important” - he glanced down sideways at her, half-wondering, and Eres’ cheeks effectively burst into flame - “outside of the demands of your position is overwhelming. That it might have any sort of permanence even more so.”

Eres leaned back enough to fully stare at him.

“Am I close?” He asked. 

“How did you-“

“Perhaps we have more in common than you think, Vhenan.”

“You’re doing an amazing job of hiding it, then,” she observed, giving him a nudge with her shoulder.

“Does it seem that way to you?” 

“Only one of us here is shaking and babbling.”

Solas looked away, off into the dark forest. “Do you remember the night we unlocked the eluvian? When you asked if I would be willing to take a chance?"

"I remember you saying something about it being worth my time if I could wait."

He snorted. "Yes. That would be the conversation. The more pertinent part of it being when I asked for the time to think. "

Eres snorted too. “I still don’t remember any babbling being involved.” He stayed quiet for a time. So long, in fact, that Eres worried she had said something to offend him. “Is this about your considerations?” She eventually prompted when the silence got to be too much. She had been purposefully very good about not pressing him for information these past two months they had been together, but even now, perhaps even especially now, the fires of her curiosity burned. 

“Yes and no,” he eventually said, not relaxing from his rigid position. “I took my time to think. Or rather, I realized that thinking had very little to do with what I was actually going to do. I was frustrated, disquieted by the sway you held - hold - over me. To stay away from you would’ve been kinder in the long run, and yet I could not.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“So I have. 

“Solas,” she began, unsure of how to phrase her question. “I… You’ve been taken on a grand tour of nearly all of my dirty laundry-“

“Nearly?” He asked, relaxing a little and sliding his arm from her shoulder to wrap around her waist instead. 

“Nearly,” she confirmed, wondering if she should just outright explain why she had even left her clan in the first place. She opted against it. Solas was safe, here with her, and somehow managing to calm the knee-jerk anxiety that seemed to come hand and hand with every realization of just how far in over her head she was with him. It was _supposed_ to be a night of celebration. “You know, what? Forget I said anything. This isn’t the way I wanted tonight to go.”

He hugged her tight against his side and rested his chin on her head. “You are right. Tonight is not the night.” Eres stifled a yawn, but Solas noticed it and said, “We should return to camp. Tomorrow, I imagine, will be a long day of travel.”

“Probably should,” she sighed. Talking through some of the things flying through her head had done away with the fluttering, thankfully, though it hadn’t at all dulled the warmth that seemed to fill up every corner of her whenever she looked at him. “Thank you, for… for this. I needed this.” Her heart sank when the warmth of Solas at her side gave way to the chilly night air as he stood. The forest had grown a little colder than Eres had planned for in the time they had spent talking, and she found herself wishing she had thought to grab her coat.

“I think I may have needed this as well,” he said, holding out a hand to her. She took it, grabbing her daggers up from where she had dropped them earlier and he pulled her to her feet. 

A soft _plink_ of water hit Solas squarely on the tip of his nose. He blinked in surprise, looking up at the sky as more _plinks_ and _plops_ of raindrops sounded all around. 

“We should move quickly,” He added, turning to head back towards the camp. After only a few steps, the sky let loose in earnest. Raindrops skittered through the trees, hissing their way down onto where Eres and Solas walked, him slightly in the lead. There were distinct benefits in letting him take the lead. Water clung to his tunic, soaking into the fabric and bestowing upon her a delightful view of the way the muscles of his back moved as he walked. It was a good back, defined enough to give her terrible ideas about feeling those muscles flex under her fingertips, as she could’ve had earlier had her brain not gotten in the way. 

“Solas, wait.”

He stopped, turning to look at her through the rain. Water trickled over his face, dripping down along the hard line of his jaw as he raised a brow in confusion. She watched one lone drop make its way over the curve of his cheek, tracing down over his upper lip, where it broke apart when he opened his mouth to speak.

Eres yanked his hand, pulling him to her. She had to stand on her toes to get her face close enough to his mouth to draw him into the kiss, but after Solas had finished stumbling forward and realized what was happening, he dropped his staff without a thought and wrapped his arms around her. Their mouths crashed together, teeth clicking for a jarring moment and Eres laughed against him as they corrected. There was no hesitancy, no dizzying butterflies of worry, only Solas’ strong hands gripping at the small of her back and the fire raging inside of her.

Eres shrugged out of her dagger harness again, letting them fall off of her arms before grabbing the front of his sopping shirt and pulling him closer, arcing her back so her hips pressed forward against him and he bowed over her. 

“You do not mind the rain?” He murmured into her mouth, words punctuated by each tangling her tongue with his. 

“Not in the slightest. You?” she breathed. 

In answer, he walked her back a few steps holding her tight against him to stop her from falling over, and pressed her up against a tree again. “I believe this is where we left off.”

“Good memory,” she gasped as his mouth moved to her shoulder, trailing a line of fiery kisses over to where the drenched cloth of her shirt clung to her collarbone. Eres fumbled for the lacings of his breeches, but was stopped when Solas’ hands slipped off of her ass and caught both of her wrists. 

He drew her arms up over her head, pinning her wrists together. An involuntary hum slipped past her lips as he dragged his nose along the curve of her neck, hot breath blowing out onto her drenched skin. Solas pushed a thigh between her legs and adjusted his grip, using one hand to keep her crossed wrists captive. He ran the other down the length of her arm, trailing fingers down her side, stopping to splay over the flare of her hips and deliciously kneed into the tensed muscles.

Eres squirmed as his lips closed around the lobe of her ear and sucked, earning herself a slight burn from where the tree bark scraped against her back and wrists, though it was softened by the rain-soaked shirt that was plastered to her skin.

“Are you uncomfortable?” Solas asked, mouth right next to her ear. The hot breath on her skin made her shiver. 

“On a number of levels, but, fenedhis, don’t let that stop you.” 

He rumbled a small chuckle at her reply and moved the hand not holding her against the tree to the laces of her breeches, working the leather ties with fingers much defter than hers had been moments before. His mouth snared hers as the ties came undone and she could wriggle her hips enough to get the leather waist hanging low on her hips. Wriggling again made the rough wood at her back scrape, a blitz of pain against the wall of sweet pleasure from the hand he had slipped down between her legs. She leaned her head back, biting her lip as the raindrops hit her face. 

He was not wasting time tonight - not following his usual pattern of driving her past thinking before giving her what she wanted. His fingers danced over her, light for a moment, before increasing the pressure and circling in even, steady moves. A breathy moan slipped past her lips and Solas hummed his approval against her neck. The hand holding her wrists crossed tightened. Their breathing grew ragged as Eres angled herself closer to him, riding his thigh as his hand continued doing the gods’ work. The rain beat down on them, falling hard enough that the ground under there feet was starting to soften into pools of mud. Frankly, if the earth itself sucked her in and swallowed her now, she'd die happy. 

He withdrew his hand, letting her wrists free as well. Bending down, he attempted to yank her pants down her thighs, the wet leather clinging to her drenched skin. It required a bit of fiddling - tight leather pants mixed with rain water were not the easiest thing to contend with at the best of times, let alone through a blaze of lust. Eres tried to help until Solas pressed a hand to her belly and a kiss to her thigh, murmuring something in elvhen as he pushed flat back against the tree. Eres finally kicked the pants off her ankles as Solas straightened, cupping her breasts through her shirt, now so wet it was nearly transparent. Not that it made much of a difference. The rainy night was nearly pitch black - even the stars above were covered by the clouds and dense tree tops.

She stole her chance to rake her hands over his arms, up around his shoulders and down his back, fingernails scraping over each curve of muscle, tracing their lines through his own rain soaked shirt. Moving downwards on her exploration, she ran her hands around to his front, brushing over the unmistakeable hardness there and making Solas’ breathing hitch. He opened his eyes, burning a look into hers as she dragged the drenched cloth of his pants over the hard lines of his hips. They were good hips. It had been too long since she'd had the chance to become acquainted with them again. A whole two weeks without this? Madness. Far too long to be parted from hips like his. 

“Let me know if it gets to be too much,” he half-whispered, as he came fully free of his trousers. 

“If what does- oh shit!” She gasped as he ducked down, hooking his arms between her legs and around her thighs, lifting her fully off the ground.  Her back hit the tree, stopping her from falling. 

“This,” he said simply.

"Solas!"

"Vhenan?"

“Ass,” she laughed, leaning in to press a kiss to his lips. 

He stayed still for a moment, watching her, an amused smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. A smile that was _significantly_ tempered by the burning look in his eyes.

"May I?" He asked again.

If he didn't at this point, Eres thought herself likely to spontaneously combust. "By all means," she said, sounding more than a little hoarse.

Solas shifted, leaving her unable to anything but bite her bottom lip against a moan as he slowly slid into her. Every sensation stood out in perfect clarity, as though the time froze while the motions repeated on loop. The rain pelting her, the hands holding her thighs, the burn of the tree at her back and each smooth rock of his body against hers they moved together in the dark night.

Solas leaned forward as he rocked with her, gently catching her lip between his own teeth, breathing in the moan she had been holding back as he ran his tongue along her lip.  His hands tightened around where he gripped her thighs, fingers digging in as he continued his maddeningly slow pace. 

“Ar lath ma,” he said, before letting out a low groan of his own. He hiked her up higher against the tree, leaning more fully against her, mouth going to the side of her throat. Eres ran her hands down his arms, feeling the tension in them notch another level. Anticipation rose the edges of her mind. She had noticed it her first night with him, but the observation stood and would hopefully prove true tonight: everything was done to excess with Solas. At least when it came to this. Especially when it came to this.

His thrusts gained speed, drawing a litany of small whimpers from Eres as she gave over to the ever increasing rhythm.  

The delicious, unbearable rumble that had started the moment he had kissed her tonight took on a dizzying new level, spreading from her hands to the tips of her toes. A cry ripped its way out of as her as she buried her face against his neck. Anything that did not relate to her immediate need for him to _not stop_ vanished.

Solas groaned low into her ear and his hips took on an erratic pace, pounding her against the tree, all sense of measured control completely lost. Eres came right up to the edge, teetering dangerously. With another deep, toe-clenching thrust of his hips, an explosion of light went off behind her eyes as her whole body spasmed with release. Solas tensed, sucking in a harsh breath, and gave one final push as he came undone along with her, teeth scraping along the crook of her neck as he exhaled his relief.

They sagged against each other, held up by the tree. Sinking all the way down to the ground into a contented heap seemed like a good idea to her, though she supposed it was better they didn’t because of all of the mud. Eventually Solas untangled his arms from around her thighs and set her on her feet. 

Reaching up to run a thumb along her jaw, he pulled her into a heart-wrenchingly gentle kiss.

“Ar lath ma,” he said again as he pulled away. 

Lightning flashed, the first streak of it they had seen tonight, and Eres jumped. Solas called a small, seemingly water-impervious flame to life in the palm of his hand and set about trying to find their scattered clothes and weapons. She watched him collect their things and then come back to where she was still leaning, slightly dazed, against the tree trunk. She was pretty sure the huge smile plastered on her face looked more than a little dumb, but it didn't seem to want to leave her. 

Solas chuckled. “I take it that you enjoyed that as much as I did?”

Eres could only nod, not quite ready to trust any words that might come spilling out of her mouth. He handed over her clothes and she shimmied her way back into her pants. 

“Will you let me look at your back?” He asked.

“Why?”

“I want to make sure you were not hurt from the tree.”

“Oh right. Yeah. I think I’m fine, though.” Still she turned around and he peeled up her sopping shirt. A small noise of disapproval came from where he was standing behind her, and little tingles of healing magic began skittering over her skin. Eres sighed as the warming energy cut through the chill of the water trickling down her, and another lightning strike flashed across the sky. It looked like it hit a tree somewhere fairly nearby, but there was no thunder. Weird.

As yet another flash went off, Eres froze. 

“Solas,” she whispered.

“Hmm?”

“Dragon.”

“I did not quite hear you.”

“Dragon,” she said more forcefully.

“What?”

“Dragon!”

And instead of thunder, miniature earthquakes shook the ground and echoed around the dark forest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm. Sooo... this chapter had a looot of revisions. It was originally a lot kinkier and a lot more out of character and lot less sweet. Here's hoping that this version doesn't disappoint? I like it better :X
> 
> Aghaslk. I really wanted to show their easy intimacy... which isn't so easy... except it is... except it isn't. Basically, one of my biggest things with this story has been to write Eres and Solas as having a real relationship. So I didn't want to just jump right into the smut when Eres was so wigged out from feeling close to someone. 
> 
> Also, writing smut is terrifying. Have I said that before? Because I probably don't say that enough. There's a chance I'll jump back in tonight and rewrite all of the dirtier bits, but I really just needed to suck it up and post this.
> 
> Salesman made [this amazing portrait of Eres](http://maizzycakes.tumblr.com/post/127029939322/ithesalesman-afterinquisitions-eres-from) That you all should go stare at, by the way.


	37. Unselective Non-Hearing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, long time no see! Apologies, the DLC kind of ate my life, then I had to figure out how I was going to change what I'm doing with the rest of the flashbacks in this story :D Literally the next chapter of this story is a doozy of a flashback that was directly impacted by Trespasser.
> 
> THIS chapter does not have any Trespasser Spoilers. The rest of the story after this will have lots of Trespasser spoilers (and now, since I've gone through and re-edited EVERYTHING *wipes sweat off brow*, everything before this chapter has them as well)
> 
> (yeah, I'm _that_ guy that went through and did that all immediately)
> 
> For people who've been reading this all along the way, I'll list out what I changed in the end chapter note for ya' so you don't have to go back through and reread everything.

Josephine awoke with a start and a snort. Something very loud and very… un-Skyholdish was still sending aftershocks through the air around her, though her mind was being slow to process it. Her cheek peeled away from the lumpy, leathery pillow it had been plastered to as she struggled to an upright position. 

Something was wrong. 

Where  _was_  she? 

Panic punched up in her gut as she squinted around in the darkness, unable to see anything. It didn’t smell like Skyhold. Too much woodsmoke and ozone. And it certainly didn’t feel like Skyhold. Unless she was very much mistaken, it was a soggy bed roll under her, rather than her comfortably squashy mattress back home. 

Josephine’s hand went to her pillow, only to find that it was not, in fact, a pillow. Rather, it seemed to be a thigh. A thigh attached to someone who was snoring softly somewhere near her ear. 

Josephine jumped, gasping out an “Oh!” of surprise, before stifling it under a hand. 

The person grumbled and shifted, snoring stopping. “Oh, you’re awake,” Harding mumbled. “I was” - she yawned - “trying to stay up in case anyone needed to find you. Looks like that didn’t work out, though.”

“Scout Harding!” Josephine squeaked through her fingers. “I am _so_ sorry. You should’ve woken me immediately.”

“Call me Lace. And really, I don’t mind being your pillow if it ever comes up again, Like now, if you” - she yawned again - “want to sleep some more.”

Josephine tried to stare, but the darkness of the tent made it next to impossible. Instead, she coughed, trying to clear her throat of any more embarrassed sqeaking before she tried to talk again. 

“I see. Well, I… thank you, Hardi-Lace. I think I am as thoroughly rested as I can be at the moment.” Josephine bit her lip against a smile. Now that the initial shock of waking up with someone had worn off... Perhaps this wasn’t quite such a disaster if Hardi-Lace was the one she had happened to wake up alongside. 

“Does this mean you’ll be adding me to the doll collection?”

“What?” Josephine sqauwked, steel falling down into her tone. Maker if that’s where the conversation had gone last night… she was never drinking again. Never.

“Kidding,” Lace laughed. “Well, sort of. You did end up telling me about those last night, but I don’t know if an evening of cuddling would already qualify me for the honor.”

“WHAT?” Josephine demanded, louder this time. Andraste’s… ass! Was there some sort of memory loss poison she could procure from requisitions? Surely Leliana’s people had managed to come up with one by now.

“It's ok, Ambassador.”

“Josephine,” Josephine corrected on reflex.

“Josephine. Relax, your secret is safe with me.”

Josephine put her hands to her face and sat for a moment, trying to get her embarrassment under control. Her embarrassment, however, seemed to be on the warpath tonight.

“Did you say ‘cuddling’?”

“Umm-”

A shout came from outside the tent as the ground under where they sat started to shake. Josephine felt Harding stand and then was momentarily blinded when the scout ripped back the tent flaps and let in some firelight. To her immense relief, Josephine hadn’t changed into her night clothes, so she didn’t have to waste a moment putting those on before heading out to address the trouble. 

As soon as she stepped out into the rainy night, Josephine was nearly swept off her feet by the bustle of activity. Weapons were being gathered; Sera was cackling as she shook up jars of bees; Iron Bull seemed to be practically dancing where he stood, wringing his hands around the hilt of the axe he had spent so much time cleaning and sharpening the other night when they stopped on their way to the Emerald Graves. All the while, the ground rattled, rustling bushes and sending protesting nugs squealing away, following the rivulets of water streaming down from their camp on the hill. 

It took a moment of standing there, stupefied by the whirl of everything, for Josephine to understand, but when saw what was happening she had to lean up against a stone pillar for support. There, in a crackle of lightning, was something huge. It took another crackle for her to see the two smaller figures sprinting full-out in front of the behemoth. Unless she was very much mistaken, that, not ten meters from the dragon’s mouth, was the Inquisitor.

“Shit,” she swore and pushed herself up from the pillar. Sudden determination steeled its way down through her limbs and her mind narrowed in on the problem at hand. Namely, helping however she could to get that beast dead before it managed to accomplish that same goal with any of them. 

Cullen brushed past her, yelling orders to the various scouts, but stopped when he caught a look at her out of the corner of his eye.

“Josephine! Fall back and stay down. This will be over soon enough.”

“I can help,” Josephine informed him calmly, glancing around for ideas about how exactly to do that. Dragon or no, she would not be _that_ coward running off to hide while her friends faced their potential doom. Her eyes landed on the tent the Inquisitor had supposedly been occupying with Solas. 

“Josephine…” Cullen began, but Josephine cut him off.

“No, Commander. I know what I am doing. I'll be fine.”

He looked pained, but turned back to pick up where he had left off in shouting orders. 

Josephine made her way through the dashing people to the tent. Upon opening it, lo and behold, there was the inquisitor’s proper armor and equipment belts. Fear made her hands shake, but Josephine grabbed it all up anyway. Eres would  _not_  be fighting a dragon unarmored. That was at least one place Josephine could lend her assistance.

A deafening roar shook the heavy tarp of the tent all around her. One moment, Josephine was scanning around to make sure she had also grabbed all of Solas’ armor, the next, a crackle of electricity lit up the soaked fabric of the tent. Flames burst up around her.

Josephine nearly screamed, but caught herself before it came out. Drawing attention to herself as prey while a dragon circled overhead would be a fool’s move. Clenching her teeth, she tightened her grip on the gear in her arms. 

That was when a distinctly nasty stroke of bad luck hit. 

Something dropped out of Eres’ belt and rolled across the ground. 

Josephine had half a moment to think “Oh… no…” Before her instincts took over. She barreled through the burning tent flaps, steam hissing off of her as rain hit fire that had spread over her finely woven blouse. A wall of sound burst up behind her, followed by a shockwave that sent her sprawling. 

She landed hard and quickly rolled over to look at the destruction that Eres’ grenade had caused. Fire spread to the trees above, so hot that the rain was doing nothing but adding to the chaos. Other tents were lighting up now too, but, perhaps most distracting of all, a hulking shape now flew directly overhead. Firelight licked across it’s belly, the only thing stopping it from being pure shadow in the night. 

And it was getting bigger. 

Or, more correctly, closer.

Josephine sat up and saw Eres and Solas come skidding to halt in front of where she lay.

Eres’ lips formed the word “Josie!”, as Eres crouched down in front of her, but the ringing in Josephine’s ears did not let any sound through. Josephine shoved out the bundle of leather and equipment out from under her. It had blessedly cushioned her fall from the explosion, but she hoped she had not crushed anything. 

Eres hurriedly gathered her armor up as a gentle hand touched Josephine’s shoulder. She jumped and rolled over to see Solas offering out his hands. 

Right.  _Not_  laying down in the middle of a dragon attack was probably smart.

He pulled her to her feet and almost simultaneously, the dragon dived. Magic tingled up around her, and she lost her mind for a moment, distracted by staring at the purple barrier encasing her hands. 

Solas gestured emphatically, trying to get her attention. He mouthed some words at her, and Josephine had to assume that the words had something to do with the sudden earthquake as the dragon touched down at the far end of the hill. 

Wind kicked up, an inexorable vacuum sucking her away from the direction she wanted to be moving. Eres and Solas stumbled along beside her, fighting to run against it, but it was no use. The dragon was flapping its wings, creating a vortex to draw them all close enough to its teeth for Josephine's legs to redouble their shaking. 

Eres mouthed something at Solas, then with a soundless snarl she spun and charged into the center of the whirlwind. Josephine looked back and saw Eres dive at the dragon, stabbing a dagger up through the thick, armored scales where its leg met its chest. The dragon bellowed a high-pitched screech of anger that even managed to break through Josephine's deafness. It stopped flapping and turned its attention to the half-armored Inquisitor dancing around under its legs. Horrified, Josephine noted that Eres had barely managed to get the coat around her shoulders. It hung open and flapping in the wild wind of the storm and the dragon. That surely was not the best way to go one on one with a dragon. 

Solas grabbed Josephine's arm and yanked her away. She nearly fell over, but was grateful a moment later when lightning from the dragon's mouth struck where they had been standing. They ran back toward the fires of the burning camp, and Solas gestured for her to go down the side of the hill before turning and running back towards the dragon himself. 

Josephine waited for a moment before following his silent instructions, staring as the rest of the inner circle descended on the monster. Her heart thudded away, full to the brim with a lethal combination of nerves and more than a little bit of pride as she watched them all bob and weave, deftly avoiding the stamping, clawed feet of the dragon. 

Something thwacked Josephine around the knees and she whirled around to see the prisoner holding one of the burning branches. She was clearly shouting at the top of her lungs, but Josephine could hear nothing. 

Josephine gestured to her ears and shrugged, trying to convey that she didn't understand and the dwarven woman gnashed her teeth in frustration.

She pointed straight up. Above Taegin, the core of the tree that had been such a nice, shady canopy for their prisoner earlier was fully covered in flames. 

Taegin was trapped. If the massive branches cracked and fell, there would be no escaping the molten metal for her. 

The key. The key, the key.

Josephine cast around wildly for... maker, was it Leliana that had it? Eres? 

Her eyes landed on the equipment belt that Eres had left lying in the mud when she had run off to confront the dragon. It had been years since Josephine had even touched a lock pick, but what else was there for her to try?

She scrambled forward, slipping in the mud, but managed to skid to halt by the belt before she went sliding straight into the middle of the dragon-filled fray. 

In a moment, she was back at Taegin's cage, fumbling with trembling fingers for the small set of metal picks. As she got them into the lock, it dawned on her that what she was attempting was impossible. She'd never hear the click of the tumblers grooving into place with the ringing in her ears.

"I can't hear!" She shouted at Taegin. 

The woman nodded vigorously and held out a hand through the bars, cupping her hand. Josephine looked up at the burning branches and made up her mind; Eres would have to forgive her. She handed over the lock picks and watched as Taegin awkwardly began working on the lock through the bars. 

She should probably do _something_  to stop the prisoner from getting away. It was irresponsible to just let her disappear into the night. Josephine rooted around in Eres' belt once more and nicked her finger on something sharp. 

Sucking in a lungful of air at the sharp pain, Josephine more carefully reached in again and drew out one of Eres' small throwing knives. It wasn't much, but it would have to do. She turned her gaze back to Taegin and held the knife up as threateningly as she could manage. 

Taegin just raised a brow over unamused eyes, before turning her attention back to the lock. 

Yes, Josephine was having a hard time taking herself seriously as well.

She _did_  know how to use the knife, but it was not something she was entirely sure she would end up doing when it came down to it. 

Flames flashed all around her and suddenly Josephine was on the ground, screaming in pain. The big branch that had been hanging so precariously had broken, and she hadn't even heard it coming. She tried to roll away from it, but she was pinned and only succeed in getting her sleeve caught on fire. Hastily she rolled it around on the muddy ground as best she could, trying to get the fire out. 

The cage door sprang open near her head, a pair of boot-clad feet hitting the ground right next to her. The tree limb began to shift off of her legs, and another scream tore out of Josephine as the weight shifted onto what was clearly some manner of broken bone in her foot. 

With a huge heave, Taegin managed to push the branch completely away and immediately dragged Josephine's arm up and around her small shoulders. 

Josephine tried to stand, but it was no good. The best she could manage was to crawl weakly along with the dwarf guiding her way. They made it past the rows of tents on fire, and that was where Taegin dropped her back down into the mud. She took off, running away from the camp as fast as she could. 

In one last ditch effort to stop the prisoner from escaping, Josephine shouted, "Help!"

Before the word died on her lips, a blur of blue light sailed past her. 

Josephine saw Eres pointing a finger and looking furious. One minute she was standing there watching Taegin escape, then the next the dragon's huge foot smashed into her in like a runaway carriage. She went cartwheeling through the air landing hard in a heap of tangled limbs. The blur of blue light came speeding back past Josephine, materializing as Solas on his knees in front of where Eres was trying, and failing, to struggle to her feet. Then, with a soundless bellow, Iron Bull cut through the scales of the dragon’s neck and brought it crumpling down to the ground. 

Josephine laid back down, not even caring that her hair was sinking into the mud. They had done it. They had killed a high dragon. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My secret crack-ship is finally coming into play!... let me have this.  
> Also I really enjoy the idea of Josephine swearing. It's delightful. I also greatly enjoy the idea of her trying to help out in a fight without feeling the need to go and headbutt a dragon herself. 
> 
> OKAY  
> STOP READING THIS NOTE NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO GET SPOILED FOR TRESPASSER. 
> 
> \---  
> \---  
> \---  
> \--
> 
> Ok, so I actually didn't have to change too-too much because I've kept most things pretty vague so far AND correctly predicted a few things. BUT, I did rewrite the first Solas flashback in here to make it so when he's going to visit Sylaise, it's because he's trying to cozy up to the evanuris and sort of infiltrate them now that he's starting up his anti-slavery movement. I left the flashback with Felassan alone. Then for the third flashback with Andruil/the tree, I actually didn't change too much. Switched it so she called him Fen'Harel as an insult and lost her temper over him trying to take down the system of slavery instead of just general vagueness. Also, Sylaise and Solas weren't going to go bang when they were interrupted anymore. Just as a side-note haha
> 
> So those are the big ones, but I rewrote something in almost every chapter. I also just straight up re-edited some things that have been bothering me for a while, but for the most part, it was basically just me going through and changing some of the directionless angst into angst more directly tied with what we now know Solas is up to. The overall flavor/pacing/everything about their relationship is unchanged and so long as you know what happens in Trespasser, you'll be good to go. I'll be building all future theories/plots/flashbacks off of stuff in there.


	38. A Proposal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BEEP-BOOP TRESPASSER SPOILERS
> 
> BEWARE BEWARE

“Did you get her?” 

Solas did not meet Eres’ pained gaze as he ran his hands over her leg, searching hard for the break. His magic could heal it in a heart beat on a usual day, veil or no, but this was not a usual day.

“I am not sure” he ground out, frustrated. “This will hurt.”

He had found where the bone was shattered in her shin and quickly snapped the biggest fragments into place. Eres made a plaintive, high-pitched noise that turned his heart over even as he poured healing magic through her skin.

“Solas!” She gasped through clench teeth, clearing fighting to keep down tears from his ministrations. “What do you mean you’re not sure? Didn’t you just sleep her? Forget me, go check.”

The whole fight had been a strain - spells coming sluggishly to his fingertips and failing to have their desired potency even when he finally did manage to call them up. He had tried to hang back, conserve energy where he could, but by the time he had needed to fade step to Taegin, for a moment or two he hadn’t had enough mana left to do anything more helpful than watch her slide down the side of the muddy hill. It was more embarrassing than anything. He _had_ eventually managed to hurl some magic at her retreating back, but was entirely unsure if it had been enough to actually lay her out. 

He turned from Eres and shouted through the din of rain and exhilarated voices, “Dorian!”

The mage made his way through the chaos and settled down on the ground on Eres’ other side. 

“Help, please,” Solas said softly, eyes flicking to Eres’ face as she leaned her head back, mouth set in a firm line against the pain. “My magic is not at full strength yet and she needs healing. Now.”

Dorian looked startled, but leaned in readily enough. “You know I’m no where near as good at this as you are, yes?”

“Anything is better than nothing.”

“Solas, please,” she hissed out again.

He nodded, reluctant to leave her while she was in this state, but did as she asked and headed over to the hill where he had followed Taegin. He had to half-slide down it, the ground now so saturated with water that it would’ve been impossible to do anything less. In the dark undergrowth of the forest, there Taegin was, coated in mud and -

_Fast asleep._

_Andruil and Anaris were anything but peaceful as they lay under the bindings of Solas’ enchantment. He did not dare look away. It was a strong spell, but then, they were strong, fully-declared opponents._

_He had known this day would come - the day when the evanuris would no longer tolerate what little they knew of his rebellion. He had not suspected that it would come to outright confrontation so soon. Perhaps it was just Andruil - Solas doubted that after millennia of distrust and occasional warfare the other evanuris would relish the thought of working with the “Forgotten Ones” as they had come to be called._

_It spoke to just how much he was succeeding in his plans if Andruil had gotten desperate enough to involve Anaris._

_Mythal hadn’t know. Surely she hadn’t. She would’ve informed him immediately if an alliance such as this had come to her attention. She might still relish in playing their fools’ game, love the power at her fingertips, but she was the best of them - not so far corrupted that she would let injustice on a grand scale fly past her notice. Bringing the Forgotten Ones into play was one such action that she would have stopped before it had even begun._

_And where was Felassan with Mythal? Solas had not followed Andruil so far from the palace that it should’ve taken this long for him to return. Or perhaps Mythal had not believed Felassan. It was possible, though he had hoped that Felassan would be snappier about grabbing her attention. He was not usually one to fail at conveying a point._

_Anxious now, Solas fiddled with the press of his high-collared robes and resisted the urge to pace. He still was uncomfortable with the thought of taking his eyes off of his two captives._

_The dark forest was quiet, all of the animals having no doubt fled from the sudden bursts of magic and the loud noises. Solas lit a ball of fire in his hand to get a better look at where Andruil and Anaris lay slowly sinking in to the muddy ground. He did not draw closer - he did not know if the tension in his legs would’ve allowed it._

_Voices cracked though the silent rustling of the trees, shattering the cold dread that held him rooted to the spot. She had come after all.  He let go of the heavy breath he had been holding and flared the fire in his hand brighter. He turned towards the direction the voices were coming from and leaned back against a tree, trying to hide all signs of nervousness. This conversation would likely require a bit of fast talking. He and Mythal were on decent enough terms even after all that had been happening, but it did not mean she would appreciate the fact that he had laid low her own daughter (insanity notwithstanding)._

_“They should not be much further,” he heard Mythal’s voice say somewhere behind the wall of trees._

_“Over here,” Solas called, a little concerned now that he had not heard Felassan’s reply._

_Instead of Felassan stepping into the clearing, Elgar’nan himself strode out of the tree line. He walked past Solas, sparing him only a contemptuous glance before he went to where Andruil lay on the damp ground. Solas drew his eyes back to front and watched with mounting tension as all six of the other evanuris walked out of the shadows._

_“What did you do to her?” Sylaise breathed, as she caught sight of Andruil and Elgar’nan past Solas’ shoulder._

_He did not like this. He did not like this one bit. As subtlety as he could, he began weaving himself a barrier, only pouring enough power in it to shorten the amount of time it would take to bring it to full power. Hopefully it was little enough that he would not draw attention to it from the evanuris standing around him in a half circle._

_“Solas?” Mythal asked, staring at him in that way that she had - two parts judgement to one part concern._

_“Andruil lead me into an ambush. Imagine my surprise when it was not only her, but Anaris as well. I subdued them both with a sleeping enchantment.” He let a little more of his barrier build._

_“I see no Anaris,” Mythal said. Her look lost a significant part of its concern, replaced by a larger helping of the angered judgement._

_Solas whirled and found Elgar’nan and Sylaise crouching next to Andruil, but all signs of Anaris had vanished._

_“What did you do?” He spat, meeting Elgar’nan’s eyes._

_Mythal swept past Solas and went to crouch over Andruil as well, examining the damage that Solas had in no way done._

_“He tried to kill her!” Sylaise screeched suddenly, making everyone present jump._

_Solas stared at her. “You cannot be serious. What would I have to gain by attacking her and then calling for Mythal’s attention?”_

_“Perhaps you meant to lure her into your trap next,” Falon’din suggested, stalking closer._

_“Seems logical,” Dirthamen agreed, walking forward as well._

_Elgar’nan stood, and everyone else in the small gathering fell quiet. He held a hand down to Mythal, pulling her to her feet so that they could face Solas as a united front. “Judge him,” Elgar’nan ordered Mythal quietly. “His treachery must end here. My love, you have been blind to what he is and held us from him far too long.”_

_Mythal glanced sideways at him, hard, jaw tightening. “Blind? Hardly. Willing to open to my eyes to a better way? Always.”_

_“That remains your answer?”_

_Mythal notched her chin a fraction higher as she turned her gaze back on Solas. “It does.”_

_Elgar’nan’s fist flexed and an invisible, harsh snap vibrated through the air as one of the strands of magic Solas had been maintaining ripped._

_Everything happened at once. So fast, that had Solas not already been primed for a fight he would never have been quick enough._

_Or perhaps it was because he had not been the intended first target._

_Andruil rose suddenly behind where Mythal and Elgar’nan stood, calling the spear made of twisting magic out of the air once again. She leaned in, faster than any one could react and drove the sharpened spike directly through Mythal’s chest._

_Still locked on Solas, Mythal’s eyes widened as the spear slipped through her ribs and drove out through her chest. Black smoke leaked from her eyes, her mouth, the bloodied wound in her chest. She screamed up towards the skies and then he was off and running._

_The barrier was as strong as he could make it as half of the evanuris dived after him into the forest, and it bought him time as he tried to outstrip them through the woods. Stealing the first moment he could, he shifted and managed to pull ahead, the sounds of his adversaries growing fainter and fainter as he escaped. Fury and sorrow propelled him forward, pushing him faster and faster. Then the sounds disappeared all together and he was away._

_He was by no means safe, not after what they had done._

_But then, he thought savagely as he slipped into the night, they were no longer safe from him either._

Taegin had not been as lucky in her escape.

She lay on her side, half-rolled under a bush from where she had crashed down the hill. 

Solas crouched down next to her and checked over her limbs to make sure nothing had been seriously damaged. It all seemed to be in working order. 

He should bring her back up to Eres.Letting her go was dangerous. Taegin was dangerous.  And yet it took him another minute of staring down at her sleeping form to really feel as though he should be moving her. There was an inherent rightness to the idea of something caged being set free. Unfortunately, Taegin had already proved herself willing to do horrible things with any sort of freedom allowed to her. There was no guarantee that she would not come back to haunt Eres again. 

The other option available besides Eres’ request was also hard to ignore. He could kill her now. It would be cold, very cold, but it would unequivocally remove the threat of further trouble caused by her. It could so easily be explained away by a roaming bear or perhaps just a bad fall. Ending her like that had it’s benefits where letting Eres kill her earlier had not - there were no witnesses, no one around to have the pedestal they held the inquisitor on knocked away by the execution of an untried criminal.

But he couldn't do it to Eres. Couldn’t take away this chance for closure about a part of her life that clearly had long reaching echoes for her even now.

Here again, were his feelings for Eres casting doubt on what the correct path of action should be. Turning what he had tried to make black and white into moral gray. She wanted Taegin dead yes, but he knew that if she did not get to make that choice herself, she would regret it.

It was a relief that he had a solid reason to not go through with Taegin’s murder - he still felt no pressing need to do away with her for his own sake and would have possibly even felt a bit bad about it afterwards, beyond the normal feelings of regret that came with taking a life. 

No, he would do as Eres asked to the letter. It was the best possible way forward. 

Unless… 

Unless he had a way of keeping her in check, even after Eres had made her own judgement. 

Taegin had managed to keep him prisoner. She had trained Eres, and she was good enough at running a far-reaching organization to have most of the Free Marches under her thumb. There was a more elegant way of keeping her on a short leash than letting her die or rot in prison.

Solas drew up magical bindings around Taegin’s hands and feet, the spell taking too long, even as it wiped out his diminutive stores of mana. He gave himself a moment to rest as his magic trickled back to him at a snail’s pace, needing to have at least a little of it at his disposal if she turned down his offer. Wiping someone’s mind was not terribly complex if he didn’t have to delve deep, but did it require some small amount of magic.

Then Solas lifted the sleep enchantment. 

Taegin sat up with a start, but nearly toppled to the side when she tried to steady herself with her bound hands. 

“Hello,” Solas said quietly. 

She blinked up at him through the rain, looking as though she was unsure whether she should be laughing or snarling. “Peaches,” she greeted. “Fancy meeting you here.”

He began without preamble. “Would you have interest in a job after your time with the Inquisition is complete?”

She raised a brow. “Depends on the job. And depends on how that time with the Inquisition goes.”

“I can guarantee your safety should the need arise. The job itself can be discussed later, after you have proved that you are as reliable about keeping quiet on the subject as I would need.”

Taegin snorted. “Not telling Eres, huh?”

“In time, perhaps. It is not her concern at the present, though, no.”

“What’s the pay?”

“Enough.”

“C’mon, Pe-Solas, right? You know I’ll need a number.”

“The lives of your templars.”

Taegin stared. “You could get them back from those red ones?” Her voice had a slight tremor to it.

“Yes.”

“I’ll.. I’ll need coin as well.”

“I know.”

She furrowed her brow and looked out into the forest for a time, but he knew he had her. 

“Fine. If I don’t like the work, though, I’m out.”

“Fine,” he agreed, then enchanted her asleep again before she could continue talking and make him want to change his mind. 

He should really be getting back to Eres. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shmeergh. I'm nervous about this chapter, but I think I like it? Yeah. I think I like it.
> 
> Also, holy shit. I passed 8000 reads! That is... Whoa. Thank you all so much for reading/kudosing/bookmarking/commenting!


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